Prototype of Reality
In March 2026, during TEFAF Maastricht and Collectible Brussels, Zaventem Ateliers will inhabit Villa Empain in Brussels for ten days. This project takes place inside one of Europe’s most significant Art Deco residences.
Villa Empain will not function as an exhibition space. Its original domestic program is reactivated. Living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, and shared spaces are used as such, forming a continuous lived environment shaped by contemporary collectible design and art. Thirty one designers and artists from Zaventem Ateliers inhabit the house throughout the project. They work, eat, rest, and spend time inside the villa. Objects are not presented for observation but are engaged through daily use, movement, and repetition.
This project brings together two distinct worlds. Villa Empain, conceived in 1934 as a private residence, is defined by proportion, ritual, and material intelligence. Zaventem Ateliers gathers contemporary practices that are experimental, direct, and rooted in the present.
Rather than inserting objects into a historical setting, Zaventem Ateliers transposes its own shared habitat of making and living into the villa. The building is not a backdrop but an active participant. Daily life unfolds inside it, activating the architecture through presence and gesture. Taking place alongside the international art and design calendar, the project proposes a different tempo. It favors proximity over spectacle and duration over immediacy.
The encounter between past and present is deliberate and uncompromising. The Art Deco interior is neither softened nor nostalgically reinterpreted. Contemporary works inhabit the space in direct tension with its architectural language. This is not historical revival or period reconstruction.