#modernity2025 #artdeco2025
For over 10 years, the visit.brussels Awards have been rewarding Brussels’ cultural and tourism initiatives that have earned the capital national and international acclaim.
This year, Urban has been nominated for the visit.brussels Awards 2026 for its initiative “Art Deco Brussels 2025”: throughout the year, Urban, visit.brussels and many of Brussels’ cultural players have joined forces to offer an extensive and varied programme of exhibitions, activities, events, visits and lectures in the capital’s most emblematic Art Deco buildings, as well as in a large number of museums and private locations.
You can vote for our project until midnight on 12 February!
→ More information about our nominated project
→ Vote here for Art Deco Brussels 2025 (“Brussels Best Co-creation Award”)Find out more about Art Deco Brussels 2025:
Following the success of Art Nouveau Brussels 2023, the Brussels-Capital Region has extended its strategy to showcase its heritage by declaring 2025 the Art Deco Year. It has seized the opportunity of the centenary of the “Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes” held in Paris in 1925 to revisit Brussels Art Deco through the prism of current urban and societal issues, and to go beyond the traditional approach centred on aesthetics and the contemplation of luxury.
In 2025, Brussels lived to the rhythm of Art Deco. Urban and visit.brussels have collaborated with a large number of museums, associations and embassies to offer an extensive and varied programme aimed at a wide local, national and international audience.
Highlights of Art Deco Brussels 2025 included the 37th edition of the Heritage Days, organised by Urban, whose programme focused heavily on Art Deco, the BANAD Festival, which gave visitors the chance to visit some sixty locations usually closed to the public, and the "Art Deco at Home" festival, offering special events every evening for a week in places steeped in history.
More than twenty exhibitions exploring the diversity of Art Deco have been added to the programme: architecture, furniture, sculpture, stained glass, fashion, textile, bookbinding, design and the development of leisure activities, for example, highlighting the social and cultural aspects of the period.
Throughout the year, a number of associations and municipal partners offered guided tours, walks and themed routes in Brussels, enabling visitors to discover emblematic buildings, private houses and Art Deco exhibitions. These activities, accessible on foot or by bicycle and in several languages, were complemented by lectures on various topics related to architecture, decorative arts, fashion and socio-cultural aspects of the era. More specific events, such as the Art Nouveau and Art Deco Objects Fair, brought together collectors, dealers and heritage restorers, along with expert appraisals and activities on Brussels’ heritage. The green spaces of the interwar period were also highlighted, while schools were able to enjoy specially tailored activities and museum visits. Several publications also complemented the programme, including a new coffee table book on Art Deco residences and thematic issues of specialist magazines.
Delve deeper into the world of Art Deco
In 2025, Urban issued six FOCUS publications, and a seventh will soon be added to the list, exploring specific themes related to Art Deco.
These articles are permanently available online:
- FOCUS #01 – Brussels cinemas
For this first focus, the wonderful world of cinema took centre stage with the opening of the exhibition “Cinémas Art Deco à Bruxelles” at Halles Saint-Géry in late January 2025. - FOCUS #02 – Glass in the spotlight
Here, the art of glass is highlighted, coinciding with the opening of no fewer than three exhibitions dedicated to this unique and precious material in the capital in 2025. - FOCUS #03 – Art Deco and gardens
This focus puts the spotlight on interbellum garden art, in conjunction with several iconic green spaces in Brussels from that period. - FOCUS #04 – Fashion in the Art Deco era
For this fourth focus, attention is turned to the fashion of the period, with two exhibitions and a talk that showcased the creativity of interwar design. - FOCUS #05 – In the shadow of the world’s largest Art Deco monument
A journey of discovery through a lesser-known part of the capital; the area dominated by the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart, straddling the municipalities of Ganshoren and Koekelberg, with its particularly rich Art Deco heritage. - FOCUS #06 – Small-scale heritage: everyday Art Deco
Focus on small-scale heritage! Urban invites you to (re)discover everyday Art Deco, those small, sometimes discreet, architectural treasures that enrich our surroundings, often without us even noticing.
