#modernity2025 #artdeco2025
In this centenary year of Art Deco, Brussels is showcasing this colourful movement with a rich programme put together by Urban, visit.brussels and their partners.
For the occasion, a series of themes are being highlighted throughout the year, in line with the programme.
For this sixth chapter, the focus is 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.
What are small-scale heritage?
In Brussels, the term "petit patrimoine" (small-scale heritage) refers to decorative features on the front facades of buildings. These are details visible from the street that embellish the architecture and, more broadly, the public space. Witnesses of their time and particular craftsmanship, they make every building unique.
They can take the form of bas-reliefs, ceramic panels, mosaics, stained glass, or details related to entrances (such as handles, doorbells and letterboxes) or balconies (railings, balustrades, brackets, etc.). Architectural details also include joinery – doors, wooden multi-pane windows, bow-windows, ornate cornices – and even the fences around front gardens.
Art Deco in the details
Decorative by nature, Art Deco liked to use materials with a wide variety of surfaces – glossy, textured, rough – and available in rich tones: vivid colours, golden hues and subtle gradations. As for the forms, these were sometimes purely geometric – triangles, zigzags, circles, etc. – and sometimes inspired by nature with stylised flowers or sunbursts.
These shapes appear in bas-reliefs made of stone or, more often, imitation stone, a less expensive, fashionable material that resembles stone. Traditional brick adopted unprecedented formats and colours, bringing compositions to life with sometimes bold projections. Ceramics cover entire facades, with glazed tiles offering a wide range of colours and good resistance to the weather. Mosaic, a thousand-year-old technique, creates decorative pictures in small tesserae of ceramic, marble or glass paste.
Some materials were only marketed in the interwar years, including two techniques from Wallonia: marbrite, a through-coloured, opal glass and cimorné, made from crushed marbrite sprayed onto fresh cement.
Wood and wrought iron also embraced the angular stylisation of Art Deco: window frames with geometric grids of small panes, etched flat irons shaped into sprays or spirals for doors, often incorporating a lantern in the same material. Coloured and textured stained glass are a welcome inclusion in these compositions, filtering daylight while preserving the privacy of residents.
To encourage the preservation of Brussels' small-scale heritage, Urban offers grants for restoring decorative elements visible from the street on non-protected properties. Any property owner can benefit from this grant, which covers 50 % to 75 % of the cost of the work, excluding VAT. So wait no longer! → Learn more
The Region also supports property owners through its private housing advice centre: Homegrade gives technical guidance on planned works, reviews quotes and helps with "small-scale heritage" grant applications. The centre also has a directory of over 160 craftspeople and professionals specialising in heritage restoration.
Art Deco Brussels 2025 programme
As the season turns, Art Deco Brussels 2025 invites you to open your eyes to the shapes, colours and materials characteristic of this movement that left its mark on entire streets and neighbourhoods across the capital. The programme features an exhibition and a series of guided tours.
EXHIBITION • "Art Deco & Art Nouveau: Convergence and Divergence"
From 20 September 2025 to January 2026, LAB•AN x Hôtel van Eetvelde explores a key question: the difference between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Through architecture and furniture, the exhibition sharpens your eye, so that you'll never confuse these two iconic styles again.
GUIDED TOURS • On the trail of Art Deco gems
To discover unexpected treasures of Art Deco small-scale heritage in our neighbourhoods, why not join one of the many guided tours offered by local associations such as Pro Velo, Korei, Itinéraires, Bruxelles Bavard, ARAU, the Brussels Art Deco Society and Arkadia.
Also interesting to know
Inventory: an illustrated catalogue of Brussels Art Deco
Compiled by Urban, the Architectural Heritage Inventory is a richly illustrated database that currently contains records on almost 26,500 buildings. Among them, over 1,900 relate to Art Deco buildings: from listed icons to more modest but no less imaginative creations.
Educational guide: "Discovery trail: Art Nouveau or Art Deco?"
Created by Les Classes du Patrimoine, this fun booklet takes families on a walk through the Étangs d’Ixelles area, exploring both the large- and small-scale heritage of Art Nouveau and Art Deco.
Publication: "Colours and textures"
In 2021, the 34th issue of Urban's "Bruxelles Patrimoines" magazine focused on the colours and textures of the architecture, featuring an article on the thoroughly Art Deco Louis Tenaerts. It also contains a colour palette of abstract compositions inviting readers to rediscover several of the capital's buildings from a fresh perspective.
