The State Archives – officially called the National Archives and State Archives in the Provinces – are a federal scientific institute that is part of the Federal Science Policy Office of Belgium.
The State Archives were created in 1796 and are the main administrator of the archival patrimony of Belgium. The institution has 18 reading rooms spread across the country’s State Archives depositories and puts more than 200 km of archives material and 25 km of books at the disposal of the public. Read more…

Since 1979, the Archives Service of the City of Brussels is housed at no. 65 Rue des Tanneurs, in the former store of the Jules Waucquez company that developed and kept a cloth wholesale there during 75 years. This beautiful remainder of commercial architecture of the early 20^th century was bought by the city of Brussels in 1976. The rolls of cloth then slowly disappeared from the heavy wooden racks to give way to the archives collections that had been preserved at the town hall since the 16^th century. Read more…

The Belgian engineer André Waterkeyn designed the Atomium to represent Belgium at the World’s Fair of 1958 in Brussels. It represents an elemental iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. The nine huge spheres connected via 20 tubes are carried by three gigantic bipods and tower above the Heysel plains with 102 metres of height.
Between 2004 and 2006, the Atomium has entirely been refurbished and now proposes its visitors new aesthetic emotions on a fancy round tour through the spheres.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Atomium, a varied programme with numerous activities is organised around the theme “Brussels Happiness” and the bonds uniting “technical progress” and “pledges of happiness”.