74 BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG REGION BY REGION

For hotels and restaurants in this region see pp262–3 and pp284–6

Musée Charlier, home to one of Brussels’s most fascinating collections of art and furnishings

Distinctive Art Nouveau curlicues

and flourishes on the Maison St-Cyr

Musée du Jouet z

Rue de l’Association 24, 1000 BRU.

City Map 2 F2. Tel (02) 2196168.

@ 29, 61, 63, 65, 66. Q Botanique,

Madou. v 92, 93, 94. # 10am–

noon and 2–6pm daily. & - =

http://www.museedujouet.eu

This well-established toy

museum, housed in a 19th-

century maison de maître

(urban mansion), will delight

visitors of all ages. It contains

some 25,000 artifacts, dating

from 1850 onwards. Adults will

enjoy the nostalgic thrill of

seeing the toys of their youth

as well as the lead soldiers,

model engines, dolls, rocking

horses and wooden jigsaws of

earlier generations. Hands-on

exhibits have been designed

to amuse younger visitors.

Musée Charlier l

Avenue des Arts 16, 1210 BRU. City
Map 2 F2. Tel (02) 2202691. @ 22,
65, 66. Q Madou, Arts-Loi. v 29,

63. 
    

    noon–5pm Mon–Thu,

    
    

    10am–1pm Fri. & 8 French and
    Dutch only. http://www.charliermuseum.be

    
    

This quiet museum was once
home to the wealthy collec tor
and patron of arts, Henri Van
Cutsem. In 1890, he asked the
young architect Victor Horta
(see p80) to redesign his house
as an exhibition space for his
extensive collection. When
Van Cutsem passed away, his
friend, the sculptor Guillaume
Charlier, installed his own art
collection in the house.
Charlier commissioned Horta
to build another museum to
house the Van Cutsem collec-
tion – the Musée des Beaux
Arts in Tournai (see p184), in
western Belgium. On Charlier’s
death, in 1925, the house and
its contents passed into the
hands of the city, to be opened
as a museum in 1928.
The Musée Charlier contains
paintings by a number of
intriguing artists, including
portraits by Antoine Wiertz
and early landscapes by Ensor,
along with other Impressionist
and Realist works. The collec-
tion also holds sculptures by
Charlier, as well as glassware,
silverware, porcelain and
chinoiserie. Of special note
are the museum’s tapestries –
some from the Paris studios
of Aubusson – set along the
staircases and first floor; as
well as the elegant displays

of furniture in Louis XV and

Louis XVI styles, located on

the first and second floors.

Quartier

Européen c

City Map 3 B3. @ 12, 21, 22, 27,

36, 59, 60, 64, 79. Q Maalbeek,

Schuman.

The area at the top of the

Rue de la Loi and around

the Schuman roundabout is

Parc du

Cinquantenaire x

See pp76–7.

where the main buildings

of the European Union’s

administration are found.

The most recognizable

of all the European Union

seats is the cross-shaped

Berlaymont building, a vast

four-pointed building that

was completed in 1967 and

has since become an iconic

symbol of the EU’s growing

power. It is the headquarters

of the European Commission,

whose workers are, in effect,

civil servants of the EU. The

Council of Ministers, which

comprises representatives of

member-states’ governments,

now meets in the sprawling

pink granite block across the