Horta House wins prestigious cultural heritage prize

Heritage projects in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent have won the prestigious cultural heritage prizes from Europa Nostra, a European network of 250 heritage associations and foundations.

Its award for conservation went to the Horta Museum in the Brussels district of Saint-Gilles, which occupies the former home of the architect and designer. Horta built the house between 1898 and 1901 in the Art Nouveau style and lived and worked there for 20 years. The property was eventually sold as two separate houses and remained that way until 1961, when they were acquired by the municipality and reunited as a museum of Horta’s work.

The most recent conservation work has returned the site to the state it was in while Horta was in residence (pictured). “What particularly impressed us about the Horta Museum conservation project was its precision and patient attention to detail,” said the jury. “Also exemplary was the perfect synergy that developed between the museum’s curator and the conservation architect: they succeeded in making themselves unobtrusive enough to allow Victor Horta, so to speak, to undertake the restoration of his own home.”

Kempens Landschap, based in Putte, Antwerp province, received the prize for Dedicated Service. The landscape association was founded in 1997 and now manages 800 hectares of historically valuable land in the Kempen, a large natural area in Antwerp and Limburg provinces. Most of the land in question is co-owned and managed by Kempens Landschap in order to conserve cultural and natural heritage and to ensure public access to the space.

“Kempens Landschap has a unique approach to conserving and managing a variety of built and natural heritage sites, located across most of the 70 municipalities of Antwerp province,” the prize jury said. “The jury could hardly conceive of a more powerful example of the implementation of the European Landscape Convention at the end of its first decade.”

Finally, a prize for education, training and raising awareness went to Shaping 24: Promoting Heritage in Norwich and Ghent, through which the two cities have “twinned” a series of heritage sites, with special promotions and events as well as educational projects.

“We were impressed with the degree of imagination shown in this co-operative programme: educational projects, the use of digital applications and the organisation of matching public events,” said the jury. “The audiences in both cities have been commendably wide, including children and students, families, minority groups, as well as local citizens and visiting tourists.”

Europa Nostra awarded 27 prizes to projects across Europe. Six of these will later be designated Grand Prix and pick up a prize of €10,000 each.