At first glance, little has changed in Antwerp’s Harmonie Park over the past 150 years. Both the greenery itself and the pearly white building that gave the park its name seem to have withstood the test of time unscathed, yet the original 19th-century ensemble only took on its current form after a recent and thorough transformation. This form houses the new Antwerp-Harmonie regional office and skilfully balances the present and the past: through a mixture of restoration, camouflage and respectful historical falsification, the building brings to life a past that, strictly speaking, never existed.

This mixture enabled designers Kempe Thill and Re-st to make use of the history they encountered without becoming trapped in the straitjacket of meticulous reconstruction. In doing so, they raise provocative questions about heritage and authenticity: how truthfully do we want our history to be preserved and presented? And how do the material and immaterial qualities of historic buildings or places actually relate to each other?