Bricks from demolished local buildings were used to construct this museum in Mouscron, Belgium, by architecture studio V+.
The Folklore Museum, which was nominated for this year's Mies van der Rohe Award, houses a collection of objects and documents that chronicle the local crafts and traditions of Mouscron from 1850 to 1940.

A white brick structure stretches along a small road behind the original museum building ? a 19th-century townhouse on the main road.
This makes the most of the relatively narrow plot, and a variation in heights along its length accommodates different functions.

Work by French artist Simon Boudvin is integrated into the structure. Bricks were sourced from demolition sites of traditional buildings around Mouscron, many of which once housed the objects and makers related the crafts and traditions celebrated in the museum's exhibitions. Although these recycled bricks are also painted with white lime to blend in with the building from a distance, they are clearly distinguishable closer up due to the difference in texture.
This creates a deliberately imperfect aesthetic.

"Simon Boudvin was involved at the beginning and proposed to transform the act of choosing material into something less aesthetic and more political," said Thierry Decuypere, associate architect at V+.
"One third of the bricks of the facade come from nine existing buildings and are sorted by their origin. The building contains folk objects and is built partially with thei...