Zaventem Ateliers Takes Over Villa Empain

From March 11 to 19, 2026, Villa Empain, one of the most significant examples of Art Deco architecture and design, will become an activated space for Belgian contemporary collectible design. Thirty-two designers and artists from Zaventem Ateliers will install art and design pieces throughout the stunning 1934 Art Deco former residence, with works that are meant to be experienced in real time. Zaventem Ateliers, founded by Lionel Jadot, is a radical and innovative non-profit studio and workshop located in a former paper factory the outskirts of Brussels. More than twenty studios work under one roof, each with its own process, discipline and logic – from textile artists to metal workers, lighting designers and sculptors.

One might call this intervention a clash of cultures or the rebellious young artists taking over the establishment, but this is a shared, mutually beneficial encounter – one that allows contemporary design and art to be experienced in a rarefied, elegant setting and for Villa Empain to be seen in a more contemporary context, where people can experience the space in new ways. Here, “the past and present coexist without compromise.” Rooms that were originally used for their built purpose – living room, dining room or bedroom, for example, will feature works that function within those spaces. The idea is for visitors to enter into a house that is inhabited, where design is encountered, touched, shared by people. The designers of Zaventem will be actively engaging with the house, giving it life and rhythm, activating with their everyday happenings.

THE MANIFESTO

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.

The full list of artists includes: KRJST STUDIO, MAISON JONCKERS, MATHILDE WITTOCK, VLADIMIR SLAVOV, AURÉLIE LANOISÉLÉE, ARNO DECLERCQ, THOMAS SERRUYS, LIONEL JADOT, ROXANE LAHIDJI, HOME SAILS, ADELINE HALOT, PIERRE EMMANUEL VANDEPUTTE, PASCALE RISBOURG, SOPHIE COUCKE, LILA FARGET, EMMA COGNÉ, PRECIOUS PEELS, CÉDRIC VAN PARYS, THIBAULT HUGUET, BEN STORMS, AURÉLIEN VEYRAT, PIERRE CODDENS, BASILE BOON, REMWOL, SIMON CALLENS, CHARLES SCHAMBOURG, LIESELOT GEEREGAT, CLEM VANHEE, STUDIO ÉLÉMENTAIRES, SHARON VAN OVERMEIREN, JOSÉPHINE ZITTA, SERBAN IONESCU

The exhibition will be open daily from 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm between March 11–19, 2026.

For more information:

Villa Empain

@fondationboghossian

Zaventem Ateliers

@zaventemateliers