Culture
11:11 12/02/2021
Has the Atomium been an illegal construction for more than 60 years? Despite being Belgium’s most recognisable symbol since it was built in 1958, the Atomium apparently doesn’t exist in any official administrative documents related to the necessary permits.
How can this 102-metre structure, the centrepiece of the World Fair and the Heysel Plateau, be so present in selfies, in paintings, on postcards, in collective memory and yet be so absent in the regulatory files of the buildings department?
In the Archives of the City of Brussels, the memory banks of the capital, there are documents dating from the Middle Ages to the present day, whatever the medium (parchment, paper, photographs, electronic data.). There are press clippings, plans, posters, drawings, models, and applications for planning permission.