In 2022, an agreement in principle was sealed with the City to install the pavilion on the site of the citadel, behind the Wedding House. According to this agreement, the UAP would be responsible for the reconstruction before handing over the pavilion to the City, which would ensure its maintenance. “Our services can also provide support for urban planning procedures”recalls Anne Barzin, alderman in charge of the Citadel.
Today, if the project is stalling, it is due to the absence of a project leader, a person who could make the link between the administrative aspects, the search for financing and the coordination of the work. Why not the UAP? “Because as a professional union, we are not intended to take on this roleexplains Hugues Libbrecht, its vice-president. I understand that the strong gesture that was made a few years ago may cause confusion, but our primary mission is to be at the service of artisans.”
Funds to find
However, it is not a question of starting from a blank page. The UAP quantified the amount of work. These are estimated at €70,000. Enough to cover the creation of the foundations, the architects’ fees, the re-construction or even the restoration of one or another element, such as the frame.
The craftsmen are ready to intervene. Concerning financing, the UAP can count on the help of Promethea to establish links with companies able to finance the project in whole or in part. Absent at this stage, public funding also remains welcome, particularly in the context of returning the building to the municipal authorities. “However, to convince companies, we need this project leader”in turn underlines Anne Céline Burton, Business Developer at Promethea. “A local association or a public service could take on this role. But we can also think of an individual or a school of architecture who would like to mobilize. We are missing this central linchpin to highlight this know-how at the Belgian.”
Without it, the risk of saying one day “all that for that” is very real.
A summary of the work of Georges Hobé
Modest in size, the casino pavilion, designed in 1910 by the self-taught architect Georges Hobé, is not lacking in interest. If many have seen it neglected – on the edge of a parking lot, surrounded by concrete blocks and topped with a neon sign – the image is far from that originally intended by the man to whom Namur owes the Théâtre de Verdure and the Games Stadium.
“It is an architecture made to be maintained, dapper… And that’s when it sings in the landscape”explains architect Raymond Balau, specialist in Hobé’s work. “At the forefront of the Kursaal, this building was to form the link between a large ensemble encompassing the Route Merveilleuse, the Games Stadium and the casino. Hobé put the greatest care into itcontinues Balau. Somehow, it is a synthesis of all the major architectural principles of the casino. It’s kind of a journeyman masterpiece. Even though it is microscopic, since only one person can fit on a chair, there is something resplendent about it. It is a contribution to this intermediate period between Art Nouveau and what was done after the First World War. There are very few things comparable in Belgium.”
According to the specialist, the desire to install the pavilion at the end of Avenue Marie d’Artois makes sense. “It’s about dragging him from one end of the Route Merveilleuse to the other, since he was at the beginning. With this idea, he doesn’t change context. Furthermore, it’s the opportunity to recall that Hobé himself had proposed a route for the Merveilleuse road in 1906, before the option through the keep, more interesting from a tourist point of view, was favored.”
