A new chapter is beginning in Brussels for Kanal, a major cultural center housed in a former Citroën factory. Originally built in the 1930s as a car manufacturing facility, the space has been transformed into a venue where contemporary art coexists with performance art, gastronomy, and urban life. Along with this new phase, the center has unveiled a revamped logo and brand identity designed by Base Design.
Following the temporary KANAL Brut exhibition in 2018, the venue closed for renovation. With the center’s reopening, the entire brand image was refreshed. Instead of a rigid framework, the designers focused on openness and constant flux. The concept is rooted in the idea of flow and overflow. It conveys the connection between art and the city, architecture and the public, and events and everyday life.
The update centers on a minimalist logo. Unnecessary symbols and additional text were removed from the previous version. The name is set in the bold Kanal Type font, created specifically for the project. The letterforms combine sharp and soft lines, and the characters are set almost flush against one another. This creates a sense of a dense connection within the space, capable of bringing together different formats and audiences at a single point.
The name KANAL is linked to the Brussels-Charleroi Canal, which has become part of the city’s identity. The new logo does not literally depict water or the building itself. It works through associations with the venue’s rhythm, flow, and internal energy. In this form, the brand conveys the atmosphere of a center filled with events, people, and cultural diversity.
In addition to typography and visual design, the new identity includes sound created in collaboration with the Kiosk Radio team. The audio layer complements the space’s overall image and enhances the program’s experience. The branding has evolved into a multi-layered system connected to a living environment rather than a static institution.
The project’s creators describe the center as an organism constantly interacting with the city. For this reason, the identity was conceived to be flexible and dynamic, ready to evolve alongside the center’s program. The result is an open and powerful image that perfectly captures the scale and objectives of a major cultural project in the heart of Brussels.