The Villa Empain in Brussels

It stands for pure luxury: the Villa Empain in Brussels, designed by Belgian architect Michael Polak in 1930/35. After a long period of neglect, the now listed building was extensively renovated and restored. The Boghossian Foundation was awarded the Europa Nostra Prize for this work.

In 1929, at the age of just 22, Baron Louis Empain launched his project for the Villa Empain on Avenue des Nations in Brussels, now Avenue Franklin Roosevelt. Louis was the second-born son of the businessman Baron Édouard Empain (1852-1930), who is still best known today in France for the construction of the Paris Metro (with the Art Nouveau entrance buildings by Hector Guimard): but Édouard Empain was not only the founder of the “Compagnie générale des
Railways à Voie étroite”, which bought up railroad lines in Belgium, France and the Netherlands, but also built others in the Caucasus, the Ottoman Empire and China. In 1904, Édouard Empain became the majority shareholder of the “Ateliers de Construction électrique du Charleroi (ACEG)” and took over the Cairo tramway company. In addition to shareholdings in industrial companies, banks and holding companies, his empire also included several marble quarries. However, his enormous fortune came from the exploitation of the Belgian colony of Congo. Personal protection from King Leopold II enabled him to establish a raw materials empire in the so-called Congo Free State in Central Africa. Édouard Empain died in 1929.

His son Louis loved architecture, was a patron of the arts and had a soft spot for Bauhaus as well as Art Nouveau. His villa therefore reflects various trends: Some ornaments are indebted to Art Nouveau, the luxurious materials to Art Deco, while the clear, geometric lines speak for modernism. Louis Empain commissioned Michel Polak (1885-1948), who had made a name for himself in Brussels at the time with the construction of large and luxurious residential complexes (Résidence Palace, 1922/28), with the design. The Belgian architect was responsible for many projects in the Belgian capital, including the Atlanta (1928), Terminus-Albert I (1929) and Plaza (1930) hotels, the Anspach department store (1935) and the headquarters of the Compagnie d’Entreprises électriques Électrorubel (1933).

High-quality materials in the Villa Empain

The high-quality materials in the 2,500-square-metre Villa Empain stand for pure luxury: the façades are clad in polished Baveno granite and the brass edge protection strips are covered in gold leaf. Inside, there is Escalette and Bois Jourdan marble, marbled palu wood from India, manilkara from Venezuela, paneling made of polished bubinga root wood, walnut and walnut root wood, rosewood and oak. There were also elaborate glass mosaics, the backlit glass ceiling “The Milky Way” by French glass painter and designer Max Ingrand and his wife Paule, as well as magnificent wrought iron and decorated stained glass. The swimming pool, which extended the living area of the villa, was not only an aesthetic highlight at the time, but also ultra-modern. It had a centrifuge that pumped the water through a filter device and a thermostatically controlled heating system. A valve specially adapted to the circulation pump made it possible to clean the pool with a portable vacuum hose.

After its completion, the now listed building caused a sensation in the early 1930s. However, Louis Empain is said to have only lived in his villa for one year, as he moved to Canada in 1934. In 1937, Louis Empain bequeathed the villa to the Belgian state on the condition that it could only be used as a museum. However, the Second World War put an end to these activities.

After various uses – for example, the Soviet embassy had its headquarters there for unexplained reasons – Louis Empain sold the villa to the Armenian tobacco producer Tcherkezian, who lived in the USA, in 1973. He in turn rented the property to the Luxembourg television station RTL, which had set up shop in Brussels (1980 to 1993). The villa then fell into increasing disrepair. In 2001, it was placed on the list of buildings worthy of protection in Brussels, and in 2006 it was purchased by the Boghossian Foundation, which restored it at great expense under the direction of architect Francis Metzger.

The villa has been a listed building since 2007, is home to the internationally active Fondation Boghossian and is used for exhibitions. The show “Portrait of a Lady” can be seen there until September 4, 2022. With eighty-five selected works of art, the “Portrait of a Lady” exhibition offers a contribution to the feminization of art.

Less refurbishment, more renovation: the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich has been letting Axel Vervoordt redesign its rooms for years. You can see the result here.