Horta Museum

The Horta Museum is the house and architectural studio that Victor Horta built for himself in Saint-Gilles, and it is the only building on the Art Nouveau circuit in Brussels that a visitor can walk through room by room. Horta bought two adjoining plots on the rue Américaine in 1898 and finished the pair of buildings in 1901, at the peak of the movement he had started eight years earlier with the Tassel House. What followed was decline rather than preservation. Tuesday–Friday 14:00–17:30; Saturday–Sunday 11:00–17:30; Monday closed.

The visit is two buildings joined together, and they were designed for different lives. House number 25 opens into a hall and a parlour for receiving callers. Above it the reception rooms of the first floor are arranged around the stairwell that is the whole point of the building: a shaft of iron, mirrors and pale walls lit from above through a skylight, so that daylight falls down through the middle of the house instead of in from its ends.

The museum's own answer is one hour and fifteen minutes on average for the house and studio, and that is a realistic figure rather than a conservative one. A guided tour, which must be booked at least seven days ahead, also lasts about an hour and a quarter. Two things pull the real figure upwards. Lockers are compulsory and the coats, bags, phones and cameras have to be deposited before entering and collected afterwards, which is another few minutes at each end. General adult admission is €14.

The opening pattern is unusual and it decides the shape of the day. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the museum opens only at 2pm and closes at 5.30pm - a window of three and a half hours. On Saturday and Sunday it opens at 11am and closes at 5.30pm. Monday it is closed. Tuesday–Friday 14:00–17:30; Saturday–Sunday 11:00–17:30; Monday closed. The museum is at Rue Américaine 27, 1060 Brussels. Take tram 81, 92 or 97 to Janson; bus 54 also serves the area. The historic interior comprises 11 half-floors arranged around a narrow central staircase.

A full adult ticket for the house and studio is 14 euros. Students under 30, jobseekers and residents of Saint-Gilles pay 6 euros; young visitors aged 6 to 17 and holders of the European Disability Card pay 3.50 euros; Article 27 holders pay 1.25 euros; children under 6 enter free. The RANN Pass is 10.50 euros. General adult admission is €14. The historic interior comprises 11 half-floors arranged around a narrow central staircase. Visitors with reduced mobility cannot access every area of the listed building. A virtual tour is available on request at the ticket counter.

The address is 27 rue Américaine, 1060 Saint-Gilles - number 27, the modern annexe, not the house at 25, because reception and the ticket desk moved there in 2016. Public transport puts a visitor within three minutes on foot. The museum is at Rue Américaine 27, 1060 Brussels. Take tram 81, 92 or 97 to Janson; bus 54 also serves the area. Visitors with reduced mobility cannot access every area of the listed building. A virtual tour is available on request at the ticket counter. Yes. The house-workshop can be visited only with an online reservation.

This is a fragile private house rather than a gallery, and the rules that follow from that surprise people. The cloakroom is compulsory: cameras, mobile phones, bags of any size, coats, umbrellas, uncapped walking sticks, food and drink all go into a locker in the entrance hall before the house is entered. The climb is the other thing to know. The historic interior comprises 11 half-floors arranged around a narrow central staircase. A virtual tour is available on request at the ticket counter. Yes. The house-workshop can be visited only with an online reservation.

Photography inside the house and studio is prohibited outright during opening hours, and the ban is enforced at the door rather than in the rooms: cameras and phones are not merely to be kept switched off, they may not be carried in at all and must be left in the lockers. The museum gives its reasons - to prevent accidental contact with the collection in narrow spaces, and to stop the queues that form when people stop to shoot. Yes. The house-workshop can be visited only with an online reservation.