Leesstraat is the temporary public space activation of Rue de la Reine, a small pedestrian street located in the center of Brussels, between two cultural public buildings: The National Opera House La Monnaie and Muntpunt Library (the biggest Flemish library in Brussels). The project is a collaboration between Cakri and Muntpunt and consists of an extension of the reading activities of the library towards the public space.

For the third edition of Leesstraat, we had to deal with the challenges of the sanitary crisis. In order to comply with the new measures and guarantee enough space for social distancing, we decided to work on planes instead of volumes. A soft hanging intervention in the interior of the library emulated a pixeled bright sky, creating an outdoor feeling and encouraging the flexible use of the ground floor. The pixeled sky extended through the transparent façade of Muntpunt towards the public space, creating a cozy atmosphere and defining an area of Rue de la Reine for outdoor activities. The floor was softened with a composition of square carpets over a virtual grid that served as a reference for safety distancing.

Diego Luna Quintanilla, Sedaile Mejias

Muntpunt

Beatrice Bellavia, Jos Horbach, Paola Hernández, Daniel Osorio, Lukas Dos Santos and Daniele Coppola.