A speculative block of shop and hotel rooms built on Antwerp’s new boulevard in the 1890s, which spent a century as offices and workshops before becoming the city’s house of fashion.
At a glance
The building on the corner of Nationalestraat and Drukkerijstraat was designed in 1893 by the Antwerp architect Ernest Dieltiëns for Alphonse Van de Put, as a shop on the ground floor with a hotel for travellers above. It fills most of the block between Nationalestraat, Drukkerijstraat and Steenhouwersvest, and turns the corner with a round tower. After the hotel closed it housed coal traders, an electricity company and a municipal sheltered workshop. Renovated by the architect Marie-José Van Hee in 2000–2002 and renamed ModeNatie, it is now the home of MoMu, the Fashion Museum of Antwerp, and of the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The building is on the Flemish list of established architectural heritage.
Key facts
- Where: Nationalestraat 28, corner of Drukkerijstraat (inventory address Drukkerijstraat 9–17), 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
- Historic name: Hôtel Central; the shop on the ground floor was the menswear store “New England”
- Architect: Ernest Dieltiëns, design of 1893, for Alphonse Van de Put; extended in 1910
- Renovation: Marie-José Van Hee, 2000–2002; further adapted by B-architecten around 2020
- Heritage status: vastgesteld bouwkundig erfgoed (established architectural heritage) in the Flemish inventory, 2009 and 2019; it is not a protected monument
- Current use: MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp, the Antwerp fashion academy and related institutions
- Coordinates: 51.217193, 4.399552 · open in Google Maps
History
Nationalestraat did not exist before the late 1870s. Its line was an old street called Boeksteeg, and in the late 1870s the City of Antwerp commissioned the Parisian builder Hubert Pierquin to cut through it a boulevard on the Paris model, about fifteen metres wide and seven hundred long, linking Groenplaats with the new southern district of the city. Drukkerijstraat, on the other side of the block, was then still Voddenstraat. In 1893 Alphonse Van de Put bought one of the corner plots freed by the works from Pierquin, to build a large complex for rent, and had the plans drawn by Ernest Dieltiëns.
Dieltiëns, a winner of the Prix de Rome in 1871 and a teacher at the Antwerp academy, was by then an established name. He had built the girls’ orphanage on Professor Claraplein and the Zuiderpershuis for the city and its charity board, and from the late 1880s he shaped much of the Zurenborg district, including the Sint-Norbertuskerk and the terraces on the Cogels-Osylei. The new block opened with the fashion business of Pierre Einmahl, who moved his “New England” store here from the Meir, and a hotel run by A. C. Bardelli, the Hôtel Central, on the upper floors.
The hotel did not last. According to the museum’s own history its rooms were turned into offices in 1908 for a coal, cement and briquette trader, and the building was extended in 1910. After the First World War the electricity company Société d’Electricité de l’Escaut, the forerunner of EBES, took it over for its offices and a showroom for electrical appliances, and Antwerp people of the time called the building “Den Ellentrik”. In the 1960s the company sold it to the City of Antwerp, which installed a sheltered workshop and added a new wing on Drukkerijstraat.
At the end of 1997 the city assigned the building to the Flanders Fashion Institute. The Ghent architect Marie-José Van Hee was engaged in 1999, work began in August 2000, and ModeNatie opened on 21 September 2002, with the fashion museum, the academy’s fashion department and the institute under one roof. Van Hee cleared away the stairs, ceilings, mezzanines and annexes added over the decades to recover the building’s original structure, built an atrium with a monumental wooden staircase, and opened a public passage diagonally through the block. The project was nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture in 2003. Around 2020 B-architecten added some 800 square metres of exhibition space while keeping Van Hee’s hall and staircase.
What you see
Seen down Nationalestraat, the building is a long white front of regular rectangular windows, with the round corner tower as its focal point. The tower rises above the roofline to a pale dome drawn with a diamond lattice and capped by a small lantern; the word ModeNatie is lettered across the drum below the dome. A dormer with a small pediment sits at the foot of the dome, facing the street. Behind it, a few hundred metres away, the spire of the Cathedral of Our Lady closes the view.
Much of what is visible is later than 1893. According to the heritage inventory the fronts were originally polychrome, red brick with white stone on a blue-stone plinth; the white render dates from between the wars or after 1945. The corner tower first carried a truncated conical roof with an iron crest and an advertising board, and the present fourth storey replaced a mansard roof in the most recent renovation. What remains of Dieltiëns’ design is the scale and rhythm of the block, the pilasters and cornices, and at street level three round-arched entrances with wrought-iron doors.
Practical information
- MoMu is open from Tuesday to Sunday and closed on Mondays; check the museum’s site for current exhibitions and hours.
- The entrance hall and staircase by Marie-José Van Hee are part of the museum visit; the exterior can be seen from the street at any time.
- The museum states that all its galleries are wheelchair accessible, through the revolving door of the main entrance.
- The best view of the corner tower is from Nationalestraat to the south, looking north towards the cathedral.
Getting there
The building stands in the old centre, a few minutes’ walk south of Groenplaats and the cathedral. Tram 4 stops at Groenplaats and tram 11 at Melkmarkt. The museum warns that renovation of the Antwerp metro tunnel, from May 2026 to the end of March 2027, has cut several tram lines that normally run underground short at Opera; check the local transport planner before travelling.
Nearby
- The Modepaleis at Nationalestraat 16, an inventoried shop building a few doors along the same street.
- Plantin-Moretus Museum, on Vrijdagmarkt, about 300 metres north.
- Cathedral of Our Lady, about 400 metres north.
- Antwerp City Hall, on the Grote Markt, about 450 metres north.
Sources
- Inventaris Onroerend Erfgoed, Hôtel Central, Modenatie (Flanders Heritage Agency): architect, client and date, the original shop and hotel, later owners, Van Hee’s renovation and the description of the fronts; with the listing records 91152 and 99590.
- MoMu, The history of the MoMu building: the creation of Nationalestraat, Einmahl and Bardelli, the conversion to offices in 1908, the nickname “Den Ellentrik”, the 1997–2002 chronology and the 2020 works. Dates given only here are reported as the museum’s account.
- EUmies Awards archive, ModeNatie: nomination for the 2003 prize and Van Hee’s approach to the renovation.
- MoMu, visitor information: address, opening days, accessibility and transport notice.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim — position, returned as ModeNatie, 28, Nationalestraat, Antwerpen.
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