Start reconstruction winter garden Cousin, Museum of Art and History, Brussels.

This special project involves the reconstruction of an Art Nouveau winter garden in the Royal Museum of Art and History on the Cinquantenaire site in Brussels. In 1900, Jean Cousin, owner of two mansions at 24 and 26 Chaussée de Charleroi, commissioned Victor Horta to build an annex to the rear of no. 26. The complex comprised several rooms, including a winter garden known as the “Salle Cousin”. The elements of the Salle Cousin were dismantled to save the building from demolition in 1969. The original structure was composed of steel and cast-iron elements. The upper section features a central skylight and adjacent flat roof. The lower part supports flat stained-glass windows and vaulted ceilings. To recreate the structure’s supports in line with the original buildings, an aluminium frame structure was designed in collaboration with the ironworker Luc Reuse. The structure had to be reinforced to take up the lateral forces that used to be transmitted, at its origin, to the neighbouring house. The winter garden will be rebuilt identically in the museum, with stone cladding, stained glass windows in the original colours and a fireplace with a bronze plaque recast from archive photographs. The entire complex will be open to the public. Barbara Van der Wee Architects is in charge of this mission together with Ney & Partners.  https://www.artandhistory.museum/en/winter-garden-belgian-art-nouveau-and-art-deco