Centre for Fine Arts - Bozar
It’s impossible to talk about culture in Belgium without mentioning the Centre for Fine Arts located in Brussels. Whether it comes to exhibitions, concerts, theater performances, movies or projects concerning literature and architecture, BOZAR will always put originality and innovation first. They prove to keep a finger on the pulse with their varied and sophisticated programme. Besides emphasizing the importance of creation, quality and a rich artistic offering, BOZAR is especially concerned about the total experience of the visitors.
Centre for Fine Arts - Bozar
Art & History Museum (RMAH)
Embark on a fascinating journey through art and history! Come and stroll among the prehistoric flints and Egyptian mummies, walk between the ancient glasses and stand back to contemplate the impressive medieval tapestries. Immerse yourself in the oriental world as you pass Asian Buddhas and travel to the other side of the world to see a gigantic statue from Easter Island. You still have to admire the magnificent collection of Belgian Art Nouveau...
The Art & History Museum is part of the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) that also cover the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM), Halle Gate and the Museums of the Far East (currently closed for renovation).
Art & History Museum (RMAH)
Museum of Natural Sciences
THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCES: A GREAT DAY OUT, NATURALLY!
In the largest Dinosaur Gallery in Europe, you can meet the famous Bernissart Iguanodons, T.rex, Triceratops, Diplodocus, and 34 other species.
But that’s not all!
The Earth is swarming with life - rediscover it in the new Gallery, Living Planet, through an aesthetic, family-friendly and scientific approach to biodiversity. Learn about the human body and how we evolved in the Gallery of Humankind and go back in time in the Gallery of Evolution. You can also find out about urban species in BiodiverCITY, discover 250 years of the history of Natural Sciences through 14 iconic specimens, beware of the kings of the Cretaceous seas in the Mosasaur Hall or admire the magnificent crystals in the Mineral Hall.
And last but not least, don't miss the temporary exhibitions and all the activities of the Educational Service: more information at www.naturalsciences.be.
Museum of Natural Sciences
Botanique
The former botanical gardens provide the unique location for the stylish cultural centre of the French community and are a great place to relax. Concerts are held in the intimate surroundings of its eight spaces and multipurpose halls, of which the most famous are the Orangerie, the Rotonde, the Museum, and the Witloof Bar.
Botanique
Forest National
Forest National can hold thousands of spectators. It is the largest concert hall in Brussels and one of the best equipped in Belgium. It hosts bigname acts such as U2, Coldplay, and Metallica, as well as events for the whole family: sporting events, musicals, ballet, and opera.
Forest National
Beursschouwburg
Apart from a pile of attractively stacked bricks in the heart of Brussels, the Beursschouwburg is, for the time being, principally an inspiring platform for between-the-arts. Here, artists reflect, show, scrap and start again in an ongoing dialogue with thinking and creative Brusseleers. The Beursschouwburg is a melting-pot and a thorn in the side, where art is served while it’s still hot. Where, now and again, artists rattle the programming. Where there’s more to life than art. Where performance, celebration, encounter and craziness all join in a merry dance.
Beursschouwburg
Ancienne Belgique
The Ancienne Belgique has been a special place for live performances since 1979. The AB presents contemporary music, especially rock and pop, from all over the world. Besides concerts with internationally famous artists, the AB offers young musicians three stages where they can perform.
Ancienne Belgique
Les Halles de Schaerbeek
Les Halles showcase their independence right in the heart of Brussels, the European capital, in a metal and glass structure dating back to 1901, which has been saved from destruction and wonderfully renovated. Its space is unrivalled and perfectly suited for celebrations, extraordinary projects, as well as both artistic and human adventures. Ever since their beginnings, Les Halles have captured and crystallised movements stemming right from the edges of art and society, in an unprecedented alliance of both learned and popular culture.
It is an ideal space to create new performative formats, going beyond the classic partition between creators and spectators. Unconcerned with the barriers separating disciplines, willing to shake up the norms, Les Halles resonate with a desire for participation and involvment, be it individually or collectively, thus characterising the digital age.
Open to contemporary hopes and upheavals spanning from the neighbourhood right out to the world at large, Les Halles keep on looking for what Europe, still on a quest for its own destiny, has to offer: exploration of new passions, reason seeking out adventure, the utmost freedom of style.
Les Halles de Schaerbeek
Théâtre Royal du Parc
The Théâtre Royal du Parc is a theater built in 1782 on the edge of the Warandepark, in addition to the successful Vaux-Hall on the same site. After a turbulent history among the various occupiers, the theater today distinguishes itself by a program that alters classic and contemporary French-language creations, with a clear preference for comedy.
Théâtre Royal du Parc
Théâtre Varia
Théâtre Varia
War Heritage Institute (Royal Military Museum)
Here you’ll find medieval armour and souvenirs from the Napoleonic campaigns, as well as a hundred or so aircraft and armoured vehicles from the two Great Wars. A breathtaking panoramic view awaits you at the top of the Arcade.
Since May 1, 2017 the Royal Military Museum is part of the War Heritage Institute, the new reference institution for military heritage and remembrance in Belgium.
War Heritage Institute (Royal Military Museum)
Musée Oldmasters Museum
Memling, Hieronymus Bosch, Quentin Metsys, Breughel, Van Dyck, Rubens, and an impressive number of other giants of painting make a date with you in a magnificent setting. This temple to art celebrates paintings from the 15th to the 18th century, presenting hundreds of masterpieces that command admiration. A garden of sculptures with a fountain completes the display.
Musée Oldmasters Museum
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium assemble six different museums: the Oldmasters Museum, Modern Museum, Meunier Museum, Wiertz Museum, Magritte Museum and the Fin-de-Siècle Museum.
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Le Rideau
Le Rideau
KVS
KVS has hi-tech infrastructure at the beautifully restaured site on Lakensestraat/Rue de Laeken (the renovated auditorium called KVS_BOL, and the Top), and in the new building at Arduinkaai/Quai aux Pierres de Taille (the 'black box' ). KVS's programme is as diverse, colourful and exciting as Brussels itself with a variety of new KVS productions, revivals of past successes, local and international guest performances, theatre, dance, music, film, literature, stand-up comedy, debates, parties, etc.
KVS
Art & marges museum
Museum of outsider art. Since its founding in 1984 and the first exhibition of 1986, Art & Marge – now the ‘art )&( marges [margins] museum’ – promotes artists outside the mainstream. These self-taught artists, often called “outsider artists”, work either individually or in creative workshops in institutions for people who are mentally unwell or who are mentally challenged. In addition to the permanent collection, temporary exhibitions will establish a dynamic dialogue with paintings by professional artists from the mainstream who are active in their cultural surroundings – the boundary between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ art? The ‘Art & Marges’ museum is not a ghetto museum but a venue for exchange, where individuality is of prime importance and where all efforts are made to make all target groups feel at home.
Open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays between 11.00 am and 5.30 pm by appointment only.
Art & marges museum
Autoworld
An impressive historic building in Brussels, linked with automotive history, is home to Autoworld, the Belgian National Automobile Museum. Situated in the ‘Parc du Cinquantenaire’, the neo-classical building commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1880. From 1902 to 1936 it hosted motor¬car and motorbike exhibitions. Since 1986 it has treasured the major part of Ghislain Mahy’s renowned classic car collection.
Over 300 vehicles, ranging from cars and trucks to motorcycles, are on permanent display. From the earliest models of the dis¬tant past to contemporary cars that prefigure the automobile of tomorrow, visitors are guided through the motorcar’s history dating as far back as 1896.
Various cars representing the most exciting years of the auto¬mobile history since 1960 can be approached and admired from close by, thanks to a brilliantly designed scenography.
Special sections focus on sports and competition, cars owned by the Belgian Royal Family, micro and bubble cars, and car design. The Belgium at Autoworld section is dedicated to the roots and history of the Belgian car industry.
Autoworld is a museum on the move, with temporary exhibi¬tions taking on various automotive themes organised through¬out the year.
More detailed information on autoworld.be
Autoworld
Wiels - Contemporary art centre
It was the brewer Léon Wielemans who asked his friend, the architect Adrien Blomme, to design and build the new buildings of his brewery in Forest. It became the leading monument of industrial archaeology in the art deco style, and houses now Wiels, an international laboratory for the creation and the diffusion of contemporary art. Focusing on visual arts, but granting a particular attention to the crossings and interactions with other disciplines, the centre wishes to present contemporary art in all its diversity and to offer a permanent dialogue with the developments and the most recent debates of the art world. The Art centre has a shop, a café and offer an impressive panorama on the city.
Cultural centres
Wiels - Contemporary art centre
CINEMATEK
The Royal Belgian Film Archive now called CINEMATEK has one of the largest collection of films in the world, which illustrate the history of film from the beginnings to our times.
The collection increases every year with some 2,000 copies.
Cinematek proposes an excellent programmation with daily silent cinema screenings, anthologies, retrospectives etc.
CINEMATEK
La Monnaie
La Monnaie is the federal operahouse of Belgium, residing in the European capital with an international reputation for producing opera’s, dance, concerts and recitals. Beside housing an own orchestra, choir and in-house ateliers, they can proudly rely on a passionate and dynamic team of coworkers and volunteers.
La Monnaie
Museum of Fashion & Lace
The Fashion & Lace Museum displays its collections by means of major annual exhibitions. These address both the design and the production and social use of the garments.
The exhibitions transport you to diverse and captivating worlds. From items never before exhibited, such as in Masculinities or Back Side, through historical themes, such as the glamour of the 1930s or the bold ‘70s, to exhibitions devoted to Belgian designers such as Carine Gilson and Jean-Paul Lespagnard.
Parallel to these major exhibitions, the museum also offers:
- The Fashion Room, an unparalleled space in Belgium, provides you with the opportunity to understand how a museum builds its collections. Discover exceptional items, not hidden behind glass, in order to see them up close.
- The Lace Room displays remarkable pieces that illustrate the finesse, high quality and beauty of Brussels lace. Explore the history of this type of fabric, so valued by the elites in the 17th century yet no longer in vogue today.
Housed in a series of historic houses at the heart of Brussels, the Fashion & Lace Museum holds some 15,000 pieces from the 16th century to the present. The Museum has the most important collections in the world when it comes to Brussels design and production, which it seeks to position in a Belgian and international context.
Its collections attest to the changes in fashion as well as to a specific era of our culture and our society.
Museum of Fashion & Lace
AfricaMuseum
The Royal Museum for Central Africa, or AfricaMuseum, is not just a reference centre for scientific research but one of the most visited museums in Belgium. Visitors discover the natural and cultural diversity of Central Africa through largely historic collections. Universal themes such as language, music, biodiversity, education, leadership, and ceremonies are presented in detail. Contemporary Congolese artists offer their views on the collections through their installations and artworks in and around the museum. AfricaMuseum also discusses the colonial history of Belgium and tackles its own inception.
AfricaMuseum
Erasmus House & Beguinage Museums
The Erasmus House, beguinage, and collegiate church of Saints Peter and Guido form a magnificent historical ensemble, right in the heart of the commune. Erasmus House – in which the famous philosopher and scholar stayed from May to October 1521 – is one of the oldest Gothic houses in the Belgian capital. It hosts a sublime collection of paintings, prints and sculptures by 15th-17th century masters like Albrecht Dürer, Hugo Van der Goes, Cornelis Metsys… not to mention portraits of Erasmus inspired by Hans Holbein and Quentin Metsys. A rich collection of 16th century books is a nod to the singular humanist’s thinking.
A medicinal plant garden – designed by landscape architect René Pechère – presents around one hundred medicinal plants that were known to 16th century physicians. Beyond it stretches a philosophical garden that is home to the works of contemporary artists like Marie-Jo Lafontaine and Bob Verschueren.
The beguinage of Anderlecht is Belgium’s smallest. Founded in 1252, today it consists of two wings framing an enclosed garden with its own well. It housed beguines right up until the French Revolution and has been completely and lovingly restored, meaning it could, once again, be re-opened to the public! A new museum project is currently in the pipeline and should be finalised in autumn 2023.
Erasmus House & Beguinage Museums
Halle Gate – RMAH
This last preserved gate will catapult you centuries back. An interactive tour through the striking rooms of the 14th century city gate will reveal how Brussels defended itself against external attacks during the Middle Ages and present the role that townspeople played in defence of their city. Visitors will gain a better understanding of the medieval city and its impact on present-day metropolitan Brussels by trying on a piece of armour, checking out models and short films, exploring multimedia activities or just simply admiring the beautiful selection of museum pieces.
And, the changing temporary exhibits on past and current life in the city are always a great reason to return to the Halle Gate. Best of all, the crenellated walkway around the top of the monument offers a spectacular view of the sprawling capital.
Halle Gate – RMAH
Comic Strip Museum (Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée)
A world full of comics
An accomplished attraction located in the heart of Brussels, the Comics Art Museum has been honouring the creators and heroes of the 9th Art for 30 years.
The regularly renewed permanent exhibitions and a diversified programme of temporary exhibitions
enable visitors to discover the countless aspects of comics art.
Famous characters lead the way towards new adventures, an encounter with a world where creativity has no limits.
Enhanced by an exceptional Art Nouveau home designed by Victor Horta, the Comics Art Museum is just as much a tribute
to the pioneers as a glimpse of contemporary comics art.
Comic Strip Museum (Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée)
