Bernard Tschumi Architects | Lina Bo Bardi | Fry, Drew & Partners | Ricardo Bofill | ARCity Office | School of Architecture, Southeast University | AESEU | UR Architects | AgwA | AJDVIV | JSa | Studio Mumbai | Studio Méditerranée
Adaptive reuse is as old as architecture. As well as the six winning and commended projects of the 2025 AR New into Old awards, this issue revisits five historical cases of transforming existing structures for new uses, from the 6th century to the final years of the 20th.
In what was then Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia – originally built as a Christian basilica – was already 900 years old when the Ottomans transformed it into a mosque. Many buildings are repurposed without an architect: the Accra Community Centre has evolved from a concert venue to a law court. It is now home to the city’s Christmas decorations and is set to become a museum for Ga heritage.
The ecological credentials of adaptive reuse were rarely its motivation. The conversion of a cement factory into Ricardo Bofill’s home and studio was a way to escape the dark political times, while Bernard Tschumi’s preservation of a dilapidated leisure complex to create Le Fresnoy was motivated by budgetary constraints.
As voices against demolition gain momentum and reuse moves into the mainstream, Lina Bo Bardi’s warning against gentrification is more pertinent than ever; the alma popular da cidade (popular soul of the city) must remain.
1523: AR New into Old
cover (above)
In his designs for Le Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary Arts (p18) in Tourcoing, France, Bernard Tschumi put a cluster of dilapidated buildings on life support by covering them with a canopy and sending cables through their roofs. Credit: Fabrice Fouillet for The Architectural Review
folio (lead image)
Between 1931 and 1949, the Byzantine Institute of America undertook conservation work of the mosaics in Istanbul’s 6th-century Hagia Sophia, which had been both church and mosque. Documentation of the process reveals the building as a palimpsest of changing uses
revisit
Hagia Sophia Istanbul, Turkey, Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles
Jennifer Hattam
revisit
Le Fresnoy by Bernard Tschumi Architects in Tourcoing, France
Isabelle Regnier
revisit
Ladeira da Misericórdia by Lina Bo Bardi in Salvador da Bahia
Francesco Perrotta-Bosch
revisit
Accra Community Centre by Fry, Drew & Partners in Accra, Ghana
Lois Quartey and Julia Gallagher
revisit
La Fábrica by Ricardo Bofill with Taller de Arquitectura in Sant Just Desvern, Spain
Rafael Gómez-Moriana
AR New into Old awards
winner
Bricolage houses by ARCity Office in Shenzen, China
Jaime Chu
highly commended
Li Hongzhang ancestral hall pond by AESEU and School of Architecture at Southeast University in Nanjing, China
Jacob Dreyer
highly commended
Monnikenbos in Zoersel, Belgium by UR Architects
Christophe Van Gerrewey
commended
Grand Palais by AgwA and AJDVIV in Charleroi, Belgium
Audrey Contesse
commended
La Fábrica de Hielo by JSa in Mexico City, Mexico
Suleman Anaya
commended
Château de Beaucastel by Studio Mumbai and Studio Méditerranée in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, France
Justinien Tribillon
