In early 2007 the villa (protected as a historical monument) was bought by the Boghossian Foundation who wanted to use it as a museum for intercultural dialogue. The foundation asked Francis Metzger, an architect with experience in renovating famous art deco buildings to lead the restoration. It was the start of an extensive two year renovation project. Metzger and electric installer TS P&O asked Brussels integrator and APart dealer Strobbe to take care of AV in the renovation project.
Laurence Rosseels of Strobbe comments, "We worked with the architects on various art deco renovation projects before, and of course we were very pleased to be able to participate in this project. As it is a historical building, we had to hide all the loudspeakers behind heating radiator grilles or air duct grilles. Everything had to stay completely invisible. We used a mixed sound installation with both 100 Volt and low impedance amplifiers and loudspeakers.
"In total we've used more than 40 APart sound columns and some sound projectors. All the speakers are in black colour, to make them as invisible as possible. Further, we have a paging microphone, and a BGM3000 CD-player/media player. We are using a Beyer Dynamic headset or wireless microphone for presentations and have two Xantech touch screens that are used to control the audio system."
Rosseels is happy with the way the project has run: "This is a building with a true soul. Working within the restrictions of a protected historical monument was a challenge, but achieving all our goals and seeing a satisfied customer made it a pleasure to work on."
(Jim Evans)
