Great news for Art Nouveau fans – a mythical Hotel Hannon in Brussels will become the Hannon museum! The Hannon Hotel is undergoing a major restoration and is set to reopen to the public in 2023.
The Hotel Hannon located at the intersection of Avenue Brugmann and Avenue de la Jonction (Saint-Gilles) will be reborn as the Hannon Museum and will reopen its doors in a joint venture with the Horta Museum, located nearby. This new Art Nouveau architectural and museum center will reinforce the cultural and tourist offer of this district, which is for the time being mainly visited for its art galleries.
A private-public partnership unprecedented in Belgium
This major museum project is the result of a private-public partnership that is unprecedented in Belgium. Enjoying complete autonomy, the non-profit organization Musée Hannon, created within the framework of this initiative, brings together the Commune of Saint-Gilles, the Brussels-Capital Region, the St’Art Invest fund, the descendants of Edouard Hannon and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, the collector Jonathan Mangelinckx, the Design Museum Gent, the museum of l’Ecole de Nancy (France), the Wallonia-Bruxelles Federation, the National Lottery,… and the Horta Museum for administrative support and expertise. Thanks to these different partners the Hannon Museum represents a real collaborative project gathering major actors.
A contemporary museum look at Art Nouveau
Commissioned by the engineer Édouard Hannon and built in 1902 by Jules Brunfaut, the Hotel Hannon, a jewel of Belgium’s Art Nouveau heritage, reveals a subtle blend of Art Nouveau with French and Belgian influences.
Owned by the Commune of Saint-Gilles, the future Hannon Museum will offer a “dusted off” image of Art Nouveau on its two floors. On the first floor, after having spent 40 years out of their original location, the furniture originally designed for this private mansion are being returned to their original location.
The public will be able to plunge back into the intimacy of the period and rediscover this interior designed by one of the most important figures of the applied arts of his time, the designer Emile Gallé. Numerous works of art still held by the descendants of Édouard Hannon will be able to be repositioned and admired in the place for which they were for which they were conceived. On the second floor, temporary exhibitions, which are renewed every three years, will showcase – in innovative scenographies – the creations of four renowned Belgian architects: Victor Horta, Henry Van De Velde, Paul Hankar and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, the latter two of whom have been rarely exhibited in Belgium until now.
These exhibitions will allow the public to approach new themes that are specific to the experimental and innovative dynamics of Art Nouveau.
The return of the original works to their original setting, the temporary exhibitions with contemporary and innovative scenography and the birth of a private-public partnership will make this inauguration one of the most important cultural events of the year.
Practical information
Location
Hannon Museum
1, avenue de la jonction
1060 Saint Gilles
Expected date of inauguration: 2023.
