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Result of a collaboration between urban.brussels, the ULB - Architecture Faculty La Cambre Horta and the Art & History Museum, initiated to mark the Brussels Art Nouveau Year 2023, this exhibition and the digital reconstruction presented in the form of a film are designed to enable visitors to explore the interiors of the Palais Stoclet, which has been on the very select list of Brussels buildings included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 2009, and yet is still little known to the general public.
The virtual reconstruction of this palace (which reproduces the state of the palace between 1911 and 1918 and does not represent the existing situation) is based on precise archival sources and a detailed architectural analysis of its spaces, a task that kept the ULB team of experts busy for almost two years. This scientific study of the Stoclet Palace is part of a close collaboration between experts from the Brussels-Capital Region (Urban.brussels) and ULB (alICe Laboratory). Its realism reinforces the impression that visitors are being immersed in the building’s original state, between 1911 and 1918: the public is discovering the palace exactly as the couple Suzanne Stevens and Adolphe Stoclet dreamed it would be.
Through this research, the Brussels Region hopes not only to make this knowledge accessible to as many people as possible, but also to build up a scientific information base on the spatial nature of the building and its remarkable decorations. Behind this digital documentation project, the research carried out by the AlICe laboratory at the Faculty of Architecture (ULB) aims to consolidate a knowledge base around the three-dimensional representation of the building, which will be enriched over time. The digitisation of the floors, service areas and gardens of the Palais Stoclet will be added to the work already carried out. The work of reconstituting the original art collection will also continue, so that this digital double of the building can gradually be reintegrated.