An iconic office building nestled in the heart of the Plaine Campus, the VUB Rectorate, known as the Braem building, is part of a series of structures built to occupy the former Manoeuvre Plain in Ixelles at the end of the 1960s. This initiative aimed to accommodate the expansions of the two newly established linguistic entities of the University of Brussels, the ULB and the VUB.
This emblem of Brussels architecture has recently undergone an extensive restoration project, proudly supported by Urban. Urban’s teams assisted the client and the architectural firm with the administrative processes required to obtain preliminary opinions from the Royal Commission of Monuments and Sites (concerning the restoration of the entrance hall, reorganisation of the first floor, replacement of windows), urban planning permits (with or without urbanistic impact), and to secure the necessary agreements from administrative bodies (the College of Mayor and Aldermen, public inquiry procedures, the consultation committee, accessibility requests for people with reduced mobility, the energy performance certificate (PEB), etc.).
To achieve exemplary restoration results, the works were 80% funded, amounting to €4,373,604.27. Urban’s teams also ensured thorough site supervision in line with authorised and subsidised interventions.
The project was based on an ambitious restoration approach: to restore the building while enhancing its overall coherence, rediscovering its interior architectural lines and the symbolism they convey. The main intervention was the transformation of individual offices into open-plan workspaces. This allows the elliptical shape of the interior to be experienced while restoring the famous wall murals to their original locations—a perfect reconciliation of science and art, true to Braem's vision.
Let us recall that the building was designed between 1974 and 1978 in a modernist style by Antwerp architect Renaat Braem (1910–2001). It is one of his final major works. The Rectorate building illustrates the plasticity and liberated aesthetic developed by Braem. The ellipse can be considered a “Gesamtkunstwerk”—a total work of art—by the architect, as Braem was responsible not only for the building’s design and construction but also for the decorative murals, painted by his own hand.
Among his other renowned works are the Model City on the Heysel Plateau in Brussels (1956–1963) and the round Glaverbel office building in Watermael-Boitsfort (1963–1967).
