TANK

For the Journées du Patrimoine, Carré Janson opens its doors to the public with TANK – From Hand Drawings to Construction, offering a first preview of a larger body of research and documentation developed by TANK architects, author of the project. This presentation offers an initial selection from an extensive archive that will be developed into a larger exhibition dedicated to the project.

TANK and Julien Lanoo have been collaborating for many years, bringing together architectural practice and photography in an ongoing dialogue around the making of a project. For Carré Janson, Lanoo was invited to follow the project from its earliest sketches through the successive stages of construction, returning regularly to the site as it gradually took shape.

The exhibition brings together a selection of hand drawings by Olivier Camus, co-founder of TANK, made during the competition stage, alongside Lanoo’s black- and-white analogue photographs. Rather than simply documenting the construction process, the photographs capture the changing character of the site — its materials, light, textures, gestures and human presence – as the historic buildings are restored, transformed and given new uses.

Together, the drawings and photographs follow Carré Janson through time: from the ideas and references that informed its conception to the physical transformation of the site. They reveal a place suspended between what remains, what is changing and what is yet to come.

The photographic series forms part of a broader archive developed by TANK throughout the project, documenting architecture not only as it is conceived and built, but as it is inhabited and experienced. The Journées du Patrimoine presentation marks the first public view of this evolving body of work, which will be expanded in a forthcoming exhibition. Shot on analogue film, Lanoo’s photographs place Carré Janson within Tournai’s long tradition of observing and recording its architectural heritage, while offering a contemporary perspective on a historic site in transformation.