Zaventem Ateliers inhabits the Brussels Art Deco landmark Villa Empain

From March 11 to 19, 2026, Villa Empain—one of Europe’s most refined Art Deco residences—will be fully inhabited by 32 designers and artists from Zaventem Ateliers. This is not an exhibition in the classical sense. For ten days, the villa becomes a functioning, lived-in environment where contemporary collectible design and art are produced, used, shared, and experienced in real time.

This project brings together two radically different worlds. Villa Empain, conceived in 1934 as a private Art Deco residence, is defined by proportion, ritual, and material intelligence. Zaventem Ateliers, by contrast, is home to some of the most singular voices in Belgian contemporary collectible design and art, whose practices are sometimes experimental, often radical, and firmly rooted in the present.

Rather than staging objects for contemplation, Zaventem Ateliers transposes its own shared habitat of making, crafting, and living into Villa Empain. The house is not a backdrop, but an active participant. Daily life unfolds inside it: working, cooking, resting, conversing. The villa becomes a temporary ecosystem—one that is continuously activated by the presence, gestures, and rhythms of its inhabitants.

Taking place during TEFAF Maastricht and Collectible Brussels, this activation unfolds quietly alongside the international art and design calendar. It offers a different tempo—one of proximity rather than spectacle, of duration rather than immediacy.

A collision of temporalities

The encounter is deliberately frictional. The historical Art Deco interior is not softened, reinterpreted, or nostalgically referenced. Instead, it stands in sharp contrast to the contemporary works that inhabit it. The clash between the villa’s architectural heritage and the designers’ experimental DNA creates tension, dialogue, and new readings of both.

This is a project entirely devoted to contemporary design and art—not historical reinterpretation, not period revival. The past and the present coexist without compromise.

A home, not an exhibition

For ten days, this Art Deco landmark returns to its original vocation: that of a home. The designers of Zaventem Ateliers reactivate the villa’s domestic functions—living room, dining room, bedroom, kitchen, and shared spaces. These rooms are not staged; they are lived in.

Visitors do not move through isolated objects or explanatory displays. They enter a house that is continuously inhabited. Design is encountered through use, repetition, and proximity—through objects being touched, moved, shared, and worn by time and presence.

The historical floor plan serves as a functional framework, not a scenographic device. Contemporary works respond directly to the villa’s materials, volumes, and rhythms, activating the architecture rather than occupying it.

Villa Empain does not become a neutral white cube, nor a reconstructed Art Deco fantasy. It becomes a living organism.

Presence as material

Throughout the ten days, the designers themselves inhabit the space. Their bodies, routines, and interactions give rhythm to the villa. Creation and life are inseparable: the work is not complete without the presence of its maker.

The space will be continuously activated by the designers of Zaventem Ateliers. Their presence, gestures, and objects give rhythm to the villa. This activation transforms the building into a world that is lived, not observed. The works and the creators animate each room in real time, allowing visitors to understand the pieces through encounter, proximity, and physical presence.

This continuous activation transforms the visitor’s experience. Meaning emerges through encounter and proximity—through overheard conversations, shared moments, and the subtle choreography of daily life. The villa becomes something to move through, not to observe from a distance.

To complete the environment, EyevEyes develops a spatial sound design that guides visitors through the house. The sound is not decorative. It functions as an invisible architecture, adding warmth, depth, and movement while reinforcing the sense of inhabitation. It carries the visitor from room to room, anchoring the experience in atmosphere and physical presence rather than purely visual cues.

THE MANIFEST

PROTOTYPE OF REALITY

We Don’t Exhibit / We Inhabit
​We are not exhibiting at Villa Empain. We are inhabiting it.

We occupy this Art-Deco jewel in Brussels as a lived space not a white cube.

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.

The universal right to take one’s place, to stand upright,
​to be legitimate in the real.

Zaventem is a family
​but also an incubator.
​A space where voices become posture.
​Where emergences stop being peripheral and become legitimate.

Here, to squat is not an act of vandalism. ​
​It is a way to exist.
​A responsibility toward the real.

Design is not decorative. It is embodied.
​Radical.
​Human.

Villa Empain becomes our home temporary, yet total
​a prototype of the world we want to live in.

LIST OF PARTICIPATING DESIGNERS AND ARTISTS

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Dates and opening hours

Address

Villa Empain, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 67 1050 Brussels

IMAGES SELECTION (©Stan Huaux)

ABOUT VILLA EMPAIN

Villa Empain was built in 1934 by Baron Louis Empain and later restored by the Boghossian Foundation. It stands as one of Europe’s most significant intersections of Art Deco architecture and contemporary cultural programming.

Originally conceived as a private home, the villa is defined by proportion, material, light, and ritual. The 2026 project activates each room according to its original function, with contemporary works inserted into the architectural structure to create a continuous environment where past and present coexist.

ABOUT ZAVENTEM ATELIERS

Zaventem Ateliers is a contemporary guild. A unique concentration of craft, design, and material innovation housed inside a former paper factory near Brussels. More than twenty independent studios work side by side under one roof. Each studio follows its own discipline, its own processes, and its own logic. Metalworkers, textile artists, sculptors, furniture makers, lighting specialists, ceramicists, material researchers. The full spectrum of creation is present and active.

What makes Zaventem Ateliers powerful is not only the diversity of practices but the density of talent. It is one of the only places in Europe where so many high-level creators produce physically on site, at full scale, every day. This generates a constant flow of new work, new ideas, and new collaborations. The ecosystem feeds itself and pushes outward with real force.

Zaventem Ateliers operates through a non-profit structure. It does not take any commission on sales. Every artist contributes to the shared costs of the space and all earnings return directly to the creator. This model preserves autonomy, ensures fair value, and keeps the focus on production rather than administration or gatekeeping.

The space has become a destination for collectors, museums, architects, and cultural institutions. This is where new forms are tested, where major projects are built, and where the next chapter of collectible design takes shape. The international impact is visible through projects in Milan, Paris, Brussels, New York, and soon Villa Empain in 2026.

In simple terms, Zaventem Ateliers is not a gallery and not an exhibition. It is a working engine of creation. A real production centre that sits at the intersection of design, craft, architecture, and cultural influence.