Vacant City

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Vacant City deals with the project to revise and reconfigure the Mont des Arts*a neighborhood in the center of Brussels where the museums and cultural institutions are concentrated*the city's 'Museum Quarter.' Originally designed from the perspective that concentrating national cultural institutions and large-scale works in the heart of a city would make a crucial difference in the city's development, the Mont des Arts is now considered to be in need of some serious revision. Vacant City offers a fascinating insight into the problematic history of the Mont des Arts as an urban site, and also proceeds from this concrete OEase study' to questions of the significance and role of museums and cultural institutions for and in the cities of the future. Vacant City shuttles between the issue of vacant structures in today's cities, the role of culture in urban and spatial planning, and the changing significance of the museum.