Stage 1

Stage 1

Starting point (and we’re starting strong!): 5 Avenue du Mont Kemmel, in Forest, the home of architect Arthur Nelissen, also known as Villa Beau-Site. It is an incredible Art Nouveau building from 1905 and in its middle is one of the most beautiful bay windows in Brussels (together with the window in Gustave Strauven's Maison Saint-Cyr on Square Ambiorix). 

Join Rue Marconi, where you’ll find a lot of eclectic and Art Nouveau social housing at number 32 designed by Léon Govaerts, at number 34 designed by Émile Hellemans and at numbers 38-40-42, designed by Henri Jacobs. Continue to number 121 for a small departure from this itinerary with La Magneto Belge, the first Art Deco building along the route, a factory built in 1941 by Léon Guiannotte and specialising in aircraft engines and ignition magnetos.

Turn back to Rue Rodenbach and return to Art Nouveau with the Rodenbach school, opened in 1911 at numbers 37 and 39 and designed by Henri Jacobs (the same architect as the Marconi houses). Further down, at numbers 14 to 22 and 27 to 35, you’ll find the workers' houses and the dwellings designed by architects Charles De Quecker and Alphonse Hannaert in 1903. In a more eclectic style but still influenced by Art Nouveau, they remind us that this movement was not just an artform limited to the bourgeoisie. Some people know the story of the Maison du Peuple, built between 1896 and 1898 by Victor Horta for the Belgian Workers' Party near the Sablon. It was an incredible Art Nouveau masterpiece but was unfortunately destroyed in 1965.