Watertower Sint Jansklooster by Zecc Architects

The architects kept the exterior of the tower almost untouched, adding only four large windows alongside the small existing ones on the top of the building. ‘The water tower is a national monument, which made alterations to the exterior and interfering with the reservoir a difficult point, explain the authors, ‘The strength of this plan lies in a combination of extreme restraint on the exterior and an architectural statement on the inside of the tower’.

To reach the top viewing platform, the visitors need to walk up a series of stairs inside the tower. The journey begins with a closed staircase that leads to the first floor on the height of four meters. A series of fancy wooden stairs then zigzag across the tower and reach the second floor, which have formerly been the bottom of the preexisting water tank. Here, the original steel stair goes up through a tight space alongside the exterior of the tank and leads to the lookout post on the top of the building.