The collection at the heart of this museum started with a discarded chair. In 1987 Philippe Decelle picked up a Joe Colombo seat someone had thrown out, and kept going for nearly thirty years.
At a glance
The Design Museum Brussels stands on the Heysel plateau, in the shadow of the Atomium, and shows design of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries across five thousand square metres. Half the space holds the permanent collection, half the temporary exhibitions. Its founding holding, the Plasticarium, is a survey of what designers did with plastic between the 1960s and the early 2000s — more than eleven hundred pieces, including work by Verner Panton, Eero Aarnio and Joe Colombo.
Key facts
- What it is: a museum of twentieth and twenty-first century design
- Opened: December 2015, as the Art & Design Atomium Museum (ADAM); renamed Design Museum Brussels on 2 October 2020
- Where: Place de Belgique 20, 1020 Brussels, next to the Atomium
- Open: every day 11:00–19:00; ticket office closes and last entry at 18:30
- Admission: €11 full for permanent and temporary exhibitions together, €8.50 for the temporary show alone; free under 13
- Website: designmuseum.brussels
History
Philippe Decelle was a collector who chose an unfashionable field. The plastic furniture of the 1960s was, in 1987, still being thrown away; he began with a Joe Colombo chair found discarded and over the following decades assembled the Plasticarium, more than 1,100 objects, artworks and pieces of furniture from the 1960s to the early 2000s. For years the collection filled three floors of his own house on the rue Locquenghien in central Brussels.
In December 2015 the Atomium acquired the Plasticarium and opened a museum for it in the Trademart building alongside, under the name Art & Design Atomium Museum. On 2 October 2020 it was renamed Design Museum Brussels, and on the same day opened Belgisch Design Belge, a permanent space for the history and practice of Belgian design. The Plasticarium itself was rebranded as the Plastic Design Collection. The museum received about 126,000 visitors in 2019.
What you see
The museum occupies a long, low volume with a fully glazed front, in the Trademart building beside the Atomium. It is a conversion rather than a monument: what the visit offers is the collection, lit and arranged, not the shell.
The Atomium stands alongside, and the two read as a pair: the 1958 world’s fair in steel spheres, and next to it the plastic decades that followed.
Practical information
- Open daily, including Monday; reduced hours on 24 and 31 December, later opening on 25 December and 1 January.
- The combined ticket covers the permanent collection and the temporary exhibition.
- Free with ICOM, museumPASSmusées or the Brussels Card.
Getting there
Metro line 6 to Heizel/Heysel; trams 7 and 62 and bus 83 stop at the same place. The museum is a short walk from the station, past the Atomium.
Nearby
- The Atomium, built for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.
- The Heysel exhibition halls and the park around them.
- The Brussels City Museum on the Grand-Place, twenty minutes away by metro.
Sources
- Design Museum Brussels — visit and prices — opening hours, admission and transport lines.
- Design Museum Brussels — address.
- English Wikipedia, Design Museum Brussels — the Plasticarium, the 2015 opening as ADAM, the 2020 renaming and Belgisch Design Belge, visitor numbers for 2019.
- Wikidata (Q28149770) — coordinates.
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See this place and what’s around it →Events here — now on & upcoming
- Val Saint-Lambert & Design (1958–2000) — Design Museum Brussels24 Apr 2026 — 25 Oct 2026See the event →
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