Arts Center nOna / dmvA

About twenty years ago arts center nOna in Mechelen suffered from a lack of space. The existing Art-deco theatre hall had its limits and was no longer sufficient in terms of flexibility. In 1999 they had the idea to build a second theatre hall on the adjacent printing business site. In the meantime, the printing factory was transformed into three temporary rehearsal rooms for artists in need, called nOva. In 2016 the actual renovation and building of the extension of arts centre nOna started. The project fits in the urban planning of the city of Mechelen to boost the cultural axis between the Grand Place and the congress center Lamot. The site is situated in the middle of a block with a medieval alley that literally separates the new and old site. The new extension got embedded in the urban fabric by the succession of interior and exterior rooms with their own materiality and atmosphere.