Mathilde Macaux
Mathilde Macaux is a fifth-year PhD student and teaching assistant at the History of Art and Archaeology Department of Namur University. Since 2017, she is conducting a doctoral research that investigates the adaptive reuse of rural monastic sites in Belgium in the 19th and 20th centuries with a particular focus on sites that have been converted into industrial facilities. She takes a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses the fields of history, history of architecture, archaeology and geography (Historical-GIS). She has recently been involved in an archeological, architectural and historical operation financed by the Walloon Heritage Agency (AWaP), led in the former Priory of Oignies (Aiseau-Presles, Hainaut). Within the frame of this mission, she was aiming to reconstruct the historical, architectural and landscape past of the site in the 19th and 20th centuries, when the Saint Mary of Oignies glass and chemical products factories occupied it.
She defended her M.A. thesis, entitled “Study of historic gardens of Belgian Cistercian abbeys from the 12th century to the 18th century (…)” at the Catholic University of Louvain in 2014 ; thesis for which she was awarded the 2015 Walloon Heritage Institute Master Thesis Prize. Two years later, a paper related to her M.A. dissertation subject was issued (Bulletin de la Commission royale des Monuments, Sites et Fouilles). She has furthermore been member of the scientific, steering and editorial committee of Stone by Stone II international conference held in Namur/Dinant in December 2018, of which proceedings will be edited in autumn 2022. In 2020, she published a paper about the industrial reuse of the Abbey of Moulins (Anhée, Namur) (Bulletin de la Commission royale des Monuments, Sites et Fouilles). In 2021, she presented with supervisor Claudine Houbart a paper related to her thesis project at the European Architectural HIstory Network Thematic Conference "Architecture and Endurance" (Heritagization and Endurance: False Friends? The Case of ′′Industrial Abbeys′′ in Belgium). She also co-signed several articles related to the Priory of Oignies and wrote the paper "Reallocating for better governance: from abbey palace to employer's castle" (Congrès WAPI, in-press). She is member of national and international associations related to heritage protection and enhancement (International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Société archéologique de Namur (SAN), Les Amis de l'église Saint-Loup à Namur asbl (ASL), Floreffe Histoire, Culture et Tourisme asbl).
List of publications on Academia.edu (https://unamur.academia.edu/MathildeMacaux?from_navbar=true)