Old England Building
A department store built like a black lantern — all iron and glass — that now keeps two thousand instruments in tune with the city.
At a glance
The Old England Building stands on the Mont des Arts, at the top of the Rue Montagne de la Cour, a few steps from the Place Royale. Built in 1899 by the architect Paul Saintenoy for the Old England department store, it is one of the boldest Art Nouveau facades in Brussels: a front of girded steel and glass, painted black, that turns a commercial building into a glittering screen. Since 2000 it has housed the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM), founded in 1877 and part of the Royal Museums for Art and History, whose rooftop restaurant looks out over the whole lower city.
Key facts
- Architect: Paul Saintenoy
- Built: 1899, for the Old England department store
- Structure: girded steel frame with glass infill, painted black
- Address: 2, Rue Montagne de la Cour, on the Mont des Arts
- Now houses: the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM), founded 1877
- Part of: the Royal Museums for Art and History
History
The Old England company was a clothing and goods retailer that had traded on the Place Royale since the 1880s. In 1898 it commissioned Paul Saintenoy to build a new store on the steep Rue Montagne de la Cour, on a narrow plot facing the royal quarter.
Saintenoy, who belonged to the same Brussels generation as Victor Horta and Paul Hankar, answered with a building whose street fronts are almost entirely glass, hung on an exposed steel skeleton. Completed in 1899, it let daylight flood the sales floors at a time when shop interiors were usually dark.
The store closed in the twentieth century, and the building was restored to house the Musical Instruments Museum, which opened there in 2000. The museum’s collection, begun in 1877, is one of the largest of its kind in the world.
What you see
The facade is a dark openwork of iron, with slender mullions, curved brackets and floral ironwork framing tall sheets of glass. Painted black and picked out with touches of gold, it reads as a single transparent surface climbing several storeys, crowned by a glazed corner turret.
Inside, the steel frame leaves the floors open and bright. The contrast with the eighteenth-century Place Royale next door is deliberate: Saintenoy set a frankly modern, industrial structure into the most classical part of Brussels, and let the materials — metal and glass — do the ornament.
Practical information
- The building is the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM); check current opening hours and ticketing.
- The rooftop terrace and restaurant give a panorama over the lower town — worth the lift.
- Time needed: 1.5–2 hours for the museum, more if you use the audio guide.
Getting there
The Mont des Arts is in the centre of Brussels, a short walk uphill from Brussels-Central station; the nearest metro is Parc/Park on lines 1 and 5. The Magritte Museum stands directly across the street.
Nearby
- The Place Royale and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
- The Magritte Museum, across the Rue Montagne de la Cour.
- The Horta Art Nouveau houses of the Saint-Gilles and Ixelles districts.
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN), “Old England (department store)”.
- Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) / Royal Museums for Art and History.
- Brussels regional heritage inventory (irismonument.be).
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