Obtaining the planning permission was a laborious process, but in 2016 the demolition and reconstruction of the BNP Paribas Fortis headquarters on Warandeberg in Brussels finally got underway. The new project, designed by Baumschlager Eberle Architekten, was the winner of a competition organised under the supervision of the Bouwmeester Maître Architecte (BMA). Completion is scheduled for 2021. A five-year construction site, then, in the heart of the city’s tourist and historic centre.

The 1970s and modernism are long behind us. A new era calls for new icons. The sombre fortress of the Belgian BNP Paribas Fortis headquarters had gradually become outdated. It is being replaced by a seductively undulating, mollusc-like structure with a hypnotic emerald-green glow, the construction of which began a few months ago.