ANTE Festival 2025: Brussels launches new festival celebrating 19th century architecture

The roaring success of Art Nouveau and Art Deco festival BANAD has inspired the city of Brussels to launch a new event exploring more than 100 years of architectural revolution predating the pioneering movements.

ANTE Festival will celebrate neoclassical, eclectic and other styles of architecture in Brussels from the period of 1780 to 1920 during two weekends: 11 & 12 and 18 & 19 October.

Via guided tours of buildings usually off-limits to the public, the festival aims to showcase an often overlooked artistic heritage, characterised by “evolutions, transitions, ruptures and major stylistic and technical experimentation,” according to Explore.Brussels, the organiser of the event.

The festival is designed to complement the BANAD (Brussels Art Nouveau Art Deco) Festival, which is held each year in spring. “This new event is part of a desire to punctuate the annual calendar with two powerful and complementary moments and to explore the roots of modernity.”

Two principal characteristics distinguish 19th-century architecture; the use of a variety of historical styles and the development of new materials and structural methods.

Offering an immersion into the rich evolution of styles - neoclassicism, eclecticism, neo-Gothic, the Flemish neo-Renaissance, neo-Egyptian, among others, the ANTE Festival also unveils the richness and diversity of Brussels' architecture.

The programme offers guided tours of interiors, outdoor areas, thematic conferences, tours adapted for people with disabilities (Explore +) and workshops and activities for schools and families.

With activities located across the region, this first edition is focused on relating the social history of Brussels through a series of strategic locations.

• Places of institutional power: Royal Palace of Brussels; Palace of Justice; Court of Auditors

• Knowledge centres and buildings bearing witness to technological revolutions: Building A – ULB; Château Tournay Solvay; Halles de Schaerbeek; Schaerbeek Station

• Artistic creation spaces: Personal home and workshops of Constantin Meunier; Camille Lemonnier Museum; Moulding Workshop of the Royal Museums of Art and History; Van Der Kelen - Logelain School of Painting

• Enigmatic settings: Former Crédit du Nord Belge, CGER and Brunner Banks; Masonic Lodge Les Amis Philanthropes

• Private residences and former homes of notable people: Campioni-Balasse; Hemelsoet; Pelgrims; Hap; de Lunden; Bischoffsheim; Du Pont; Maison Dessigny; Bloemenberg

Reservations via https://ante.brussels/en/

Photos: (main image) Maison de Lunden ©Explore Brussels/Sophie Voituron; Halles de Schaerbeek ©Explore Brussels BY2 Photographers; Maison Hap ©Explore Brussels/Endre Sebok