Kanal-Centre PompidouFACTORY OF FUTURES

KANAL-Centre Pompidou is the most ambitious cultural project of this decade in Brussels. Conceived as the city’s home for modern and contemporary art and architecture, the institution brings together exhibitions (including access to the Centre Pompidou’s entire collection of works), live events, workshops, talks, children’s programs, and a center for architecture alongside a dense constellation of public spaces such as a library and research center, a playground, multiple food spaces, and expansive rooftop and panoramic areas.

Housed in the former Citroën garage along the canal, at the crossroads of several neighborhoods, the project transforms an industrial complex of extraordinary scale into a public space spanning 40,000 square meters, half of which is free to enter. KANAL is intended to be part of everyday Brussels city life, in close dialogue with the Brussels-Capital Region and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, anchoring the institution locally while situating it within an international cultural network.

At the moment of its unveiling on January 28, 2026, KANAL is publicly emerging before it is physically accessible. Its visual identity and first year of programming are introduced while the building continues toward completion, ahead of its international public opening on November 28, 2026.

BaseBRU partnered with KANAL over a two-year period to help shape how this institution comes into the world, assembling a collaborative team that includes cultural partners Kiosk Radio and Digizik.

KANAL goes beyond the traditional definition of a museum. It is conceived as a place of encounter and experimentation, a place of many possibilities, where disciplines, audiences, and uses overlap.

Communicating this multiplicity posed a challenge of ambition and clarity. How do you build a brand and vision that is open and understandable to all without reducing its aspiration, while holding many disciplines, voices, and rhythms within a coherent system and inviting participation without defining how it should happen? One that speaks equally to schoolchildren and nightclub-goers, art lovers and architectural researchers, local communities and international audiences?

Ultimately, the task was to define an identity capable of carrying KANAL’s purpose forward, while expressing an institution intentionally open, evolving, and perpetually in the making.

So, what will KANAL be? Our approach began by trying to name this reality. One of multitudes. One of movement. One of flow, of overflow. But also, of quietude. The energy and radical openness that will be created from its programmation, in and beyond its walls.

BaseBRU crafted an identity designed to be in constant flux. At its core sits a variable typeface, developed in collaboration with Charlotte Rohde, whose forms shift, flow, and overflow, mirroring KANAL’s inherent openness and its constant exchange with the city. Extending beyond typography, the identity is built as a flexible system that operates across digital and print, allowing KANAL to hold multiplicity and move between tones, from generous and bold to precise and animated, playful and serious, often all at once.

Because KANAL is not a single voice or discipline, the identity could not be built in isolation. From the outset, we worked with the institution to assemble a broader cultural ecosystem, bringing in Kiosk Radio (one of Brussels’ coolest indie radio stations) to shape the institution’s sonic presence and Digizik (performance marketing and media) to activate KANAL’s campaign and communication strategy. As orchestrator of this network, Base helped align these distinct voices into a shared identity, designed to operate as a living system rather than a fixed expression.

Together, they establish KANAL as a cultural world already in motion, building momentum toward the full opening of the institution in November 2026.