The new experience center of the Abbey of Averbode was baptized ‘The Moment’. The heritage site is an inspiring and restful area that became now accessible for visitors. Besides a brewery, visitors can discover a cheese-maker, a bakery and an abbey-store on site. Because of the togetherness of those functions the abbey is able to show the different traditional production processes taking place in an attractive and interactive way. The design team was warrant for the design and the realization of the scenography concept, the architectural design, the public space, the opening of the historic rampart, the design of the info-panels and the furniture.
The architectural concept defined the demolition of recent additions of the site and the reconstruction of the historic bulwark by adding a new exhibition-space next to the medieval farm. The exhibition space elaborates about the Abbey and the wider region. A walk for visitors through the abbey starts under the covered exhibition-space. The interventions to the medieval abbey building are all made with respect for the protected heritage. Existing window openings were completed by steel window frames that, in certain places, filter the sunlight by brick claustra’s. The interventions in the interior are this minimal that the production processes and the historic construction draw all the attention. The visitors in the degustation space, for example, have a view over the brewing process resulting in the beer coming out of the tap. The realization of ‘The Moment’ is of the Abbey’s ambition to enlarge the touristic relevance of the Abbey and its wider surroundings.
