READING FORWARD. DIALOGHI SULLA BIBLIOTECA

» Wednesday 11 June, 6 p.m.
Sala Michele Ferrero – Casa Betania | via Bersezio 9, Cuneo 
ROEL VAN DEN BRIL
Cultural Coordinator of the “Het Predikheren” Library in Mechelen (Belgium)

In conversation with

Davide De Luca, Director of Fondazione Artea
Cristina Clerico, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Cuneo
Stefania Chiavero, Director of the Civic Library of Cuneo
Oliviero Ponte di Pino, author, lecturer and cultural planner

The event can also be followed live via streaming on Fondazione Artea’s YouTube channel.

The third Reading Forward 2025 event features Roel Van den Bril, who has served the City of Mechelen for 15 years and has been coordinator of the civic library and of the Department of Culture’s communications for the past eight. He holds a degree in Criminological Sciences from KU Leuven in Belgium and is responsible for running the “Het Predikheren” public library and for the educational initiatives and activities aimed at its community.

In the province of Antwerp, in the Flemish region and a short distance from all the main Belgian cities, lies Mechelen, a city rich in history but also in potential, to the point that the Financial Times has ranked it among the ten European cities of the future*
In Mechelen, in 2019, “Het Predikheren” was created in the former seventeenth‑century Dominican monastery, a modern cultural hub that houses the civic library and much more: a meeting place for the neighbourhood and the city, open to the world and its transformations, it is also home to a gourmet restaurant, a bar, exhibition spaces, performance areas and coworking spaces.
In several respects, this process is very similar to what is currently under way at Palazzo Santa Croce in Cuneo, a former 4,500 m² hospital occupying an entire block in the city’s historic centre, which is the subject of an urban regeneration project that will transform it into a cultural hub that from 2026 will also house the new civic library.

In 2014 the City of Mechelen and the Flemish government launched an important restoration and redevelopment project, led by the studios  Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architects, Callebaut Architects e Bureau Bouwtechniek, which envisaged the refurbishment of the entire complex, including the church, while preserving and making visible the historical layers of the building: exposed brickwork, sandstone, and traces of plaster and earlier interventions recount the history and memory of a place that today looks to the future and is open to the public.

The “Het Predikheren” cultural hub has been recognised by the regional Tourism authority as a Flemish heritage site and included among the six best venues for MICE activities (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions), and in 2020 it won the Immovable Heritage Award, a prize awarded by the Flemish Ministry to organisations that manage the region’s historical heritage and public assets correctly and responsibly.

*p. 22, European Cities and Regions of the Future 2025 report. Ranking compiled by fDi Intelligence, a division of the Financial Times

The next and final conference scheduled for this year will be

Wednesday 17 September – 6 p.m.
Vincent Eches – Director of the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême (France)

The meeting will again be held in the Sala Michele Ferrero at Casa Betania, headquarters of Confindustria Cuneo, in via Bersezio 9.

READING FORWARD. Dialoghi sulla Biblioteca is a journey accompanying the creation of Cuneo’s new library hub, which in 2026 will find its home in the historic Palazzo Santa Croce. Through a series of talks, it aims to explore and examine the role and identity of libraries, future challenges, and management, enhancement and development processes that can foster cultural growth and social well-being. It is an important opportunity to find inspiration and good practices to draw on, and to rethink how a civic library can be conceived so that it is ever more a space at the service of the city, a welcoming place for books but above all for people, and a cultural and community centre in all its many forms.

READING FORWARD is a project by the Municipality of Cuneo and Fondazione Artea, with the support of Banca di Caraglio, in collaboration with Confindustria Cuneo. Media partner La Stampa