Villa Empain

Villa Empain was designed by Swiss architect Michel Polak as a private residence in Art Deco style, and built between 1930 and 1934 by industrialist Baron Édouard Empain. Unlike similar Art Deco buildings of its time, Villa Empain was decorated with works of many different artists and as a result boasts a greater diversity than for example the Stocklet Palace. Empain donated the property to the Belgian state in 1937, with the intention of turning it into a museum of decorative and contemporary art. The foundation, known as the Le Cambre School hosted various exhibition in the villa until 1943 when the occupying German Wehrmacht requisitioned it during the Second World War. After the war it served as the Embassy of the Soviet Union until the 1970s, when it was occupied by a local TV station and abandoned in the 1990s. The neglected building was purchased in 2000 by Stéphan Jourdain, a shady businessman who proceeded to strip the building from many of its unique artifacts, until the vandalism was discovered by the Brussels Monuments and Sites conversation society that responded by locking down the site in 2001. Once again the building remained abandoned and fell prey to vandalism and squatters until the property was acquired by the Boghossian Foundation in 2008 and extensively renovated. The responsibility for the renovation was given to French architect Francis Metzger who previously had successfully completed renovations of the Solvay Library and the Central Station. With a budget of €4 million, the aim of the renovation was to restore the villa to its 1934 outlook. From its inauguration as a museum and art exhibition center in 2010, the villa has hosted many concerts, conferences and cultural events, for which it was awarded the European Prize for Cultural Heritage in 2011. It is open to the public and can be visited, along with a museum souvenir shop and a café.

Source: Wikivoyage, „Brussels/Woluwe“ · authors per page history · CC BY-SA 4.0 · as of 5/19/2018