There was a time when going to the cinema was as routine as popping out for bread. In Schaerbeek, a borough that had about a dozen cinemas in the 1960s, the Élite cinema is one of the few whose story is still being written. Expanded and renovated by the Brussels-based firm Ouest, Schaerbeek’s new cultural centre (SKA) promises to revive the idea of local community culture, integrated into everyday life.

Architecture is sometimes the art of making the most of what remains. Located in a dense and vibrant neighbourhood, the project reorganises and connects three existing buildings facing two parallel streets: a dilapidated cinema and the adjoining house on Chaussée de Haecht, and a former car garage on the quieter Rue Creuse. Rather than imposing a brand-new institutional building and its symbolic weight on the neighbourhood, the architects have chosen to work with the familiar and reveal its potential.