Immense but almost invisible, overlooking the city but built into the ground, complex but coherent, prestigious but open to all… These were the contradictions that Victor Horta had to address when he dreamt up Europe’s first ever palace of culture: the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

His ambitious architectural project presented many challenges: urbanistic, an attempt to connect the upper and lower sectors of the city; architectural, the creation of a building that responded to the needs of different disciplines yet that remained architecturally coherent; artistic, a home for all forms of art, of the highest quality and in the best conditions; cultural, making art accessible to as many people as possible – no elitism, no concessions.