In Spa, Baukunst has been commissioned to redesign the La Fraineuse sports centre, but it is doing exactly the opposite of what was asked: instead of pavilions scattered across the site, they have chosen to concentrate the architectural intervention in a single new building, which enters into an aesthetic dialogue with the great contemporary architects and the Versailles of the 18th century. Chevalier Masson’s contribution to the building’s envelope subtly complements this interplay.

At the foot of a grand residence, its invisible doppelgänger. That is the project by the architectural practice Baukunst: a very low, square structure nestled against a slope and connected via the basement to a renovated country house – essentially a 20th-century pastiche of Ange-Jacques Gabriel’s Petit Trianon pleasure pavilion at Versailles. This enigmatic duo houses the infrastructure for the administration and visitors of La Fraineuse, a state-of-the-art sports centre nestled in the heart of the Spa forests.