Citroën contemporary art museum to be called 'Kanal'

Brussels' new contemporary art museum and cultural centre in the Citroën building at Yser will be called Kanal, the project's leader has revealed.

Yves Goldstein told an audience at Brussels Days in Berlin - the city's annual trade mission to the German capital - that Kanal had been adopted as the working name for the redevelopment project, and probably for the finished museum itself.

The museum is receiving €125 million in regional government funding. Speaking in Berlin, Brussels minister-president Rudi Vervoort suggested that the federal government should have made a contribution.

"So we will do it ourselves," said Goldstein, who is Vervoort's former chief of staff and has drawn inspiration from Moma in New York and the Guggenheim Bilbao . He said Kanal should "become a museum of reference for contemporary art on a European and global level".

Seven architectural firms - shortlisted from 92 applicants - will find out next March if they have been chosen to turn the emblematic Citroën building by the canal side into Brussels' equivalent of the Paris Pompidou Centre. The building will be emptied of its cars on 9 November, with a view to work beginning in autumn 2019.

Between May 2018 and May 2019, the site will host temporary exhibitions in partnership with the Pompidou.