Throughout 2025, Urban and visit.brussels will be inviting you to discover the different facets of Brussels' Art Deco world: a programme that fits in perfectly with Urban's new annual theme, which in 2025 will be dedicated to "modernity".
Art Deco, resolutely modern?
Art Deco is an artistic movement that developed in the first half of the 20th century, leaving its mark mainly during the interwar period. This movement features geometric shapes and patterns, lustrous materials and warm, contrasting colours with gold or silver accents. The creations show a taste for precious materials, or their imitations, as well as a pronounced taste for the exotic, but may as well propose an austere simplicity. Indissociable from Art Deco, the concept of modernity was omnipresent in this period, which was marked by a surge of renewal in all areas of society, with a particular focus on democratic emancipation, technological comfort, leisure opportunities and mobility. Art Deco was applied to architecture and town planning, as well as to other artistic disciplines and even to the applied arts.
The Brussels-Capital Region is seizing 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. By examining the society that produced Art Deco, we discover the civic issues it addressed, between the liberation of morals and the threat of economic, social and geopolitical crises. They shed light on the challenges we face today: sustainable development, inclusion of diversity, re-interpreting colonisation, intergenerational exchanges, etc.
The Art Deco Year 2025 is jointly led by urban.brussels and visit.brussels, in collaboration with the non-profit organisation Patrimoine & Culture.
More than a programme
"Over the coming year, Urban's ambition is to revisit Art Deco through the prism of urban planning, architecture, sociology and human life, moving beyond the traditional approach to Art Deco, which focuses on luxury and aesthetics. Our aim is to highlight the civic issues that Art Deco addressed in the 1920s and 1930s, a period that saw the liberation of morals and the threat of economic, social and political crises. Our role is not limited to promoting our heritage. Instead, Urban wants to approach the subject from a critical angle, questioning the past in the light of today's architecture" explains Sarah Lagrillière, Deputy Director of Urban.
A foretaste of the extraordinary programme to come
Although 2024 is not yet behind us, Art Deco is already opening its doors to you!
Do not wait and get a taste of what 2025 has in store, explore a number of Art Deco must-sees and learn more about some of the movement's leading architects.
Kick-off with the inauguration of “Echoes of Art Deco”
The "Echoes of Art Deco" exhibition marks the start of the Art Deco 2025 programme and invites visitors to discover this style through the iconic architecture of the Villa Empain.
→ From November 15th, 2024 to May 25th, 2025
→ At the Villa Empain, avenue Franklin Roosevelt 67 in Ixelles
Heritage Challenge: vote for an Art Deco treasure
For several years now, the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) has organised its Heritage Challenge, with the aim of supporting the restoration of our country's exceptional heritage. For its 4th edition, seven showpieces from Belgium's cultural heritage have been selected, including a masterpiece from Brussels: the interior of the delightful Art Deco villa at the van Buuren Museum & Gardens in Uccle.
→ Urban invites you to vote, to help preserve and restore this Brussels treasure.
