Royal Belgian Film Archive - renovation of the film museum

The Film Museum underwent a thorough renovation. From a dark space, it was transformed to a bright room, totally in the style of Victor Horta. The two modern movie theatres form the jewel in the Museum’s crown.

The Film Museum is the showcase of the Royal Belgian Film Archive. Its task is to preserve, restore and show old movies. Het Film Museum is housed in a section of the Brussels Fine Arts Centre (Paleis voor Schone Kunsten). From a historical point of view, the Brussels Fine Arts Centre (Paleis voor Schone Kunsten), better known as BOZAR, is a particularly valuable building designed by Architect Victor Horta at the beginning of the 20th century. The building contains several podium rooms, as well as exhibition areas. The Henry Le Boeuf Room is renown all over the world as the home of the annual Queen Elisabeth Contest.

The work to be performed within this contract concern the part of the building located next to the staircase, which leads to the Brussels Park at rue Baron Horta. The Film Museum will be spread over three floors. Before, there was only one floor. However, by performing extensive construction work, they succeeded in creating two additional levels under the existing buildings.

The remaining of the building remained operational during these activities. Throughout the building process, the contractors were finding remnants of the ancient Brussels city walls and little houses that had been built against these walls.

The new Film Museum has a spacious and airy exhibition area that was completely restored in accordance with the original architectural concept of Victor Horta and fitted with modern multimedia facilities. In addition, there are two movie rooms. The enormous challenge of this project was to integrate everything in the small volume that we had been allocated.