The European Quarter in Brussels will grow, an architectural competition has begun

Brussels - The unattractive Brussels district, which houses the main institutions of the European Union, is set to expand significantly. Its new look will be shaped by architects participating in the newly launched international competition. The European Commission and, after all, the Brussels authorities hope that the appearance of the area around Rue de la Loi and the city ring road chaussée d'Etterbeek will become more human-friendly. However, the only certainty for now remains that the amount of office space will significantly increase.
    "The goal is to achieve a higher density of development in the area by increasing the number of floors per given area from 4.5 to eight," states the official report from the EC. With higher development, office space will logically increase as well. From the current approximately 170,000 square meters to up to 400,000 square meters, which is more than double.
    Authorities now promise that the winning project should bring buildings of high architectural value. Local residents can only hope that their words will come true, as until now, buildings in the same location have typically been of little architectural value, with the failed European Parliament standing out among them, according to many experts.
    The construction of the parliament and the establishment of other institutions led to the demolition of entire residential blocks. The clearing of large parts of Brussels has erased dozens of valuable Art Nouveau monuments from the map. The need to build large administrative complexes to accommodate thousands of new officials sparked a "demolition frenzy." The demand for office space persists to this day, despite the fact that the European quarter suffers from significant traffic problems.
    A shift is that, in contrast to the past, the European quarter will expand based on an architectural competition. This was not the case in the past. Most buildings were constructed "wildly" and without any vision of how the European quarter should look and function as a whole. At present, it consists merely of a cluster of "monster palaces."
    How the problematic district might look in the future will be revealed to the public only at the end of November when the expert committee selects the winner of the architectural competition.