BANAD – the Brussels Art Nouveau & Art Deco Festival – celebrates its first milestone this year with its 10th edition.
The festival traditionally takes place in March, a month that highlights the beauty of these architectural styles with the lush blossoming of magnolias, Japanese cherry trees and weeping willows. These are styles – especially Art Nouveau – rich in floral motifs found in stained glass, wrought-iron railings and sgraffito created at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Each year, the festival programme is presented in a new location that is added to the list of buildings opened to the public over three festival weekends (in 2026, 12 new architectural sites have been added). This year BANAD expands its focus beyond Art Nouveau and Art Deco to include Modernism.
Among the newcomers is an important selection of modernist houses:
- Villa Berteaux
- Maison des Terrasses
- the buildings of Barbier, Coppens, Dotremont and Gombert
The presentation of the festival programme took place on 5 March at the Universitaire Stichting, just a short walk from the Royal Palace. Behind its rather ordinary classical façade lies a feast of styles from the vibrant early twentieth century. The town mansion, with its eclectic design by the architect Eugène Flanneau (around 1870), was enthusiastically remodelled in 1920 by his fortunate successor Ernest Jaspar, who incorporated elements of the increasingly fashionable Art Deco. It is a typical phenomenon of the early twentieth century, when the new age reshaped older – and not so old – buildings to suit the needs of an era of rapid technological progress. In 1920 the Universitaire Stichting opened here, modelled on the closed English clubs of the time. It was intended for the academic and scientific community and operated as a private club with membership and privileges. If I were to film an adaptation of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, I would choose the Foundation’s interiors as my set. Setting aside the English humour, however, the Universitaire Stichting is a serious academic foundation and cultural centre in Brussels. It was established after the First World War to support cooperation between Belgian and European universities and to promote scientific research. The Foundation provides research grants and awards, organises lectures, conferences and interdisciplinary meetings, and serves as a place of exchange for scholars, diplomats and representatives of the cultural world. Working in Dutch, French and English, it fosters international academic exchange and plays an important role in strengthening intellectual and scholarly cooperation in Belgium and across Europe. The Foundation also has its own hotel, where scholars from different countries stay.
As a neutral venue, it also hosted the negotiations that led to the formation of the Belgian government from 10 to 12 February.
BANAD 2026:
- 60 interior visits: 12 new locations never before open to the public.
- 50 walking and cycling tours.
- Inclusive events for people with disabilities.
- Lectures for specialists and the general public.
- Visits to restoration projects.
- Exhibitions, children’s activities, a jazz evening, and tasting walks.
- Specialised bookshop and Object Bazaar with the Heritage Restorers’ Salon.
Style breakdown:
- 50% Art Nouveau
- 35% Art Deco
- 15% Modernism
The three weekends in March will cover three different areas of Brussels:
- Weekend #1 (14–15 March): Anderlecht, Sint-Agatha-Berchem, Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Koekelberg, Laeken, Brussels (Pentagon area)
- Weekend #2 (21–22 March): Vorst, Sint-Gillis, Uccle, Ixelles, Brussels (Avenue Louise & Franklin Roosevelt Avenue)
- Weekend #3 (28–29 March): Etterbeek, Sint-Joost-ten-Node, Schaerbeek, Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, Brussels (Squares)
Interesting facts:
- Hotel Max Hallet: The only Victor Horta townhouse still used as a private home.
- Louis-Herman De Koninck: Developed the Cubex kitchen system, which became an international standard for built-in appliances.
- Architecture often runs in families: the Brunfaut, Jacobs, and Van Rysselberghe families contributed many iconic Art Nouveau buildings in Brussels.