The weekends between the 11th and the 26th of March, Brussels celebrates the Festival of Art Nouveau and Art Déco 2023, BANAD, to highlight the heritage of these artistic currents in the Belgian capital. For the 6th consecutive year, the Brussels Art Nouveau and Art Deco Festival, BANAD, allows you to discover the artistic heritage of the Belgian capital from a different perspective, opening up the interiors of Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings in Brussels that are normally closed to the public.

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These days, Brussels will be filled with endless activities such as guided outdoor tours, conferences, activities for families, a vintage objects fair and other events that will highlight the in the city’s Art Nouveau and Art Deco heritage.

Brussels is the cradle of Art Nouveau and the BANAD Festival is a unique opportunity to discover it from a different perspective and learn about the rich heritage legacy that artists such as Victor Horta left in the town. At the end of the 19th century, Victor Horta, as well as other artists such as Hankar, Cauchie or even Blérot, broke the molds of traditional architecture creating a new style, Art Nouveau -which would later evolve into Art Déco- that would influence not only to architectural forms, but also to furniture, tableware and even haute couture.

A new current marked by curves, colors, lights, fauna and flora and arabesque motifs, which would later be refined with more geometric shapes of Art Deco. Some of the most representative examples of these currents that can be found in Brussels:

• Horta Museum: Built between 1898 and 1901, the house where one of the main precursors of Art Nouveau, Victor Horta, lived and worked, has been converted into a museum and remains one of the most representative buildings of this artistic trend. Inside, furniture, stained glass windows, murals, as well as personal archives of the architect are preserved.
• Fin-de-Siècle Museum: To get an idea of what the new currents of the late 19th century meant, the Fin-de-Siècle Museum collects the works of artists from this period, both in terms of painting and sculpture as well as photography, literature, music or poetry.
• Casa Autrique: Entering into Victor Horta’s first work is immersing yourself in a unique atmosphere, which takes you on a journey through time thanks to the staging by the scriptwriters and cartoonists Schuiten and Peeters.
• Cauchie House: The murals on the façade of the house where Paul Cauchie and his wife lived are the best presentation of their work as decorators and whose legacy can be followed throughout Brussels.

The BANAD Festival

Over three weekends in March, the 2022 edition of the BANAD Festival will open the doors of some fifty exceptional venues that are normally closed to the public. Each weekend will focus on a part of Brussels, in order to facilitate the visit to several of these places in the same neighborhood.

In addition to the most representative Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings in Brussels, during the BANAD it will be possible to access, for the first time, the Old Brunner Bank, the studio house of the artist Arthur Rogiers or the Van Hoof house.

There will also be a series of international conferences and colloquiums on different aspects, such as the presence of women in Art Nouveau or the stained glass windows of Brussels. As a climax, on March 27, the BANAD Festival will invite a selection of artists to the café- L’Os à Moelle theater to experience an immersion in burlesque and the most sensual side of the roaring 1920’s.

Nice video on the BANAD FESTIVAL 2021: