Home to thousands of Art Nouveau buildings, Brussels cemented its place in 2023 as Europe's Art Nouveau capital after a year-long promotion of the city's architectural heritage.
Over 1 million visitors were welcomed at the Brussels Art Nouveau Year in 2023, the Brussels Secretary of State for Heritage Ans Persoons announced on Friday.
More than 140 activities, including 40 exhibitions, were organised last year across the city to mark 130 years since the world's first Art Nouveau building was inaugurated in Brussels in 1893: Victor Horta's iconic Hotel Tassel.
The initiative, which began under the Secretary of State's predecessor Pascal Smet, has been branded as an "international success". The Brussels Art Nouveau Year attracted tourists from all over the world, and the city's many exhibitions and activities gained coverage from the international press, boosting the city's image abroad.
"Brussels is the absolute cradle of Art Nouveau, but too few people knew about it," Persoons stated in reaction to the figures. "In 2023, we changed that. Thanks to the Art Nouveau Year, Brussels is now the undisputed Art Nouveau capital of the world!"
The Hotel van Eetvelde, a town house designed in 1895 by Victor Horta for Edmond van Eetvelde, administrator of Congo Free State, at 4 Avenue Palmerston. Credit: Belga / Timon Ramboer
Having first appeared in Brussels in the 1890s, Art Nouveau sought to create unusual and dynamic shapes while taking inspiration from plants and natural forms. It rejected the previous century's historicism and academicism – seeking to break the boundary between fine arts and applied arts.
Several local bodies, municipalities, museums and organisations all joined forces to successfully put Brussels back on the map for its 19th-century art heritage, which lay largely forgotten after going out of fashion following the First World War.
During the Art Nouveau Year in 2023, the most high-profile exhibitions were Victor Horta and the Grammar of Art Nouveau at BOZAR, Horta's vocabulary at the Horta Museum and 'Josef Hoffmann - Under the spell of beauty' at the Museum of Art & History, where the public was shown the interior of the Stoclet Palace for the first time via a 3D reconstruction.
The Maison Hannon, a house in Art Nouveau style in Brussels, designed by architect Jules Brunfaut, is reopened after a renovation on Wednesday 31 May 2023. Credit: Belga / Timon Ramboer
Various Art Nouveau houses were also open to the public, including the recently opened Hotel Van Eetvelde Hotel (May 2023) and the Maison Hannon (June 2023), who proved to be enormously successful with the public. In just a few months, the Maison Hannon received 38,000 visitors and the Hotel Van Eetvelde was visited 20,000 times.
A new space was also set up in 2023, Lab.AN, for the promotion and interpretation of Art Nouveau. The centre also gives special attention to the indivisible link between Art Nouveau and colonialism, and also hosts RANN (Réseau Art Nouveau Network), the global network of Art Nouveau cities over which Brussels presides.
'Victor Horta and the Grammar of the Art Nouveau', at Bozar. Credit: Belga / Morganne Berger
The theme of Art Nouveau was planted in many other events, including the Brussels Bright light festival, the Iris Festival (the official celebration of the Brussels-Capital Region) and Heritage Days, among others. Bpost also released a special Art Nouveau themed stamp last year.
So what next for Brussels and Art Nouveau? Brussels will continue to protect, renovate, open up and promote its unmatched heritage, Persoons says. She also announced a new lighting plan to illuminate the many Art Nouveau monuments in the city at night.
The Belgian capital has come a long way from its Brusselization era of demolishing its architectural gems, such as the Horta's Maison du Peuple in 1965, where many of the building's iconic components were left abandoned in a park in Jette a few years later.
Today, Brussels is making this rich heritage a key part of the its identity, as it seeks to attract tourists and change international misconceptions of the city as a vapid institutional bubble.
"Brussels has confirmed its position as the most important art nouveau city in the world," explained Brussels Minister-President Rudi Vervoort (PS). "It is a touristic asset, and the 2023 figures also show that. Almost 5 million people visited our museums and heritage, and among them 8,400 visitors who bought an art nouveau pass to discover our gems.
