Brussels Art Deco Gem Villa Empain Plays Host to Experimental Collective Zaventem Ateliers

Beneath the inconsistent surface of Brussels, this compact and unassuming city is a hotbed of experimental activity. Affordable rents, quick links to major metropolises nearby, and proximity to influential schools have made it a popular place for young creatives to set up shop, incubate, and make their mark. Their output has an outsized impact on the worlds of fine art, fashion, architecture, cuisine, music, and of course, design.

Back in the day—the late 1800s and early 1900s—it was an intrepid crop of industrialists making their mark and pushing boundaries. For better or worse, Belgium was the second country to industrialize and for its main proponents to show off their success, grand homes were erected in the leading edge architectural styles of the day. Art Nouveau was ostensibly invented here and the subsequent Art Deco movement had a strong impact as well. One of the best examples of the latter is Villa Empain.

The sumptuous palace of sorts is defined by its curvaceous granite facade; palatial double-height lobby, expansive courtyard, and grand pool. Villa Empain was designed by Swiss-Belgian architect Michel Polak for the son of one of the aforementioned industrialists; a trust fund kid, yes, but at least one with an interest in social entrepreneurship. After an intensive restoration, the estate was turned into the public-facing exhibition venue Boghossian Foundation that opened in 2010.

Coming full circle—a history of scrappy innovation long defining Brussels—the platform is currently playing host to an exhibition of wildly unconventional works transcending disciplinary definition by talent from the Zaventem Ateliers collective. The self-described contemporary guild—a nod to the city’s medieval history—occupies a large former paper production facility on the other side of town. The studio complex—with shared workshops and other resources—is home to the practice of its increasingly recognized founder Lionel Jadot and other influential creatives including Arno Declercq, Roxane Lahidji, Serban Ionescu, and Ben Storms.

Naturally, the ten-day showcase (on view from March 11 to 19 and coinciding with the annual Brussels edition of the Collectible fair) was not mounted as a traditional exhibition with the home simply used as a backdrop. Rather, the collective chose to stage works from its 32 members throughout the property, activating it, according to Jadot, “as a functioning, lived-in environment where contemporary collectible design and art are produced, used, shared, and experienced in real time.” The show is an “ecosystem of Belgian contemporary collectible design and art,” he added. The notion of the works, as well as their makers, inhabiting the space was summed up, in true experimental fashion, in a manifesto. In part, it states:

We reinstall the living room, the bedroom, the dining room. We reinstall intimacy and make it public.

Because the real is at risk.
​The virtual pulls us away.
​The hand is forgotten.
​The relationship fades.
​
​The Designers of Zaventem Ateliers respond with presence.
​With sharing without greed.
​With gesture, material, honesty.

To occupy a place becomes a political act.

Not as provocation. But as a right.

And though the pieces—functional and semi-functional sculptures—and the environment might seem diametrically opposed, presented as a tension of different styles, an implicit throughline of breaking with convention seems to exist beneath the surface. Demonstrating that sentiment as visitors enter Villa Empain’s driveway is Camille Tan’s Lost Highway piece, a pimped-out 1980s Mercedes 380SL, re-skinned with radically visceral sculptural elements. All the temporary interventions staged throughout the mansion aren’t meant to be reverential or nostalgic but as conversation starters about the relevance of such an environment and the role of our domestic spaces today.