Atomium
Interesting facts
- For years photographs of the Atomium could not be freely published, as Belgian copyright society SABAM claimed rights over images until a freedom-of-panorama law passed in 2016.
- The structure weighs around 2,400 tonnes, and each of its spheres alone weighs roughly 250 tonnes.
- The central lift carries 22 people to the top in about 23 seconds.
- The escalators inside the slanting tubes, about 35 metres long, were once ranked as the longest in Europe.
- During the 2004–2006 renovation the old aluminium skin was cut into triangular pieces and sold to the public as souvenirs.
- Belgium marked the renovated Atomium with a commemorative two-euro coin issued in 2006.
- In 2013 CNN named the Atomium Europe's most bizarre building.
- In 1960 the Tour de France passed the Atomium in its opening stages, and a motor-racing Grand Prix was held around it from 1960 to 1962.
- With more than 600,000 visitors a year, it is the most visited attraction in Brussels.
Why it is worth it
The Atomium is a crystal of iron blown up to the scale of a building: nine stainless-steel spheres, each 18 metres across, joined by tubes into the shape of a body-centred cubic unit cell, the arrangement of atoms in iron enlarged roughly 165 billion times. It stands 102 metres tall on the Heysel plateau in Laeken, in the north of Brussels, and remains one of the tallest structures in Belgium and the emblem of the city's modern age.
It was built as the centrepiece of Expo 58, the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, at a moment of strong faith in science and the peaceful use of atomic energy. The engineer André Waterkeyn presented the idea in 1955, and the architects André and Jean Polak turned it into a building. Foundations were begun in March 1956 and the structure was completed less than a month before the fair opened on 17 April 1958. The original design had the whole cube balanced on its lowest sphere, but wind-tunnel tests showed it could topple in strong winds, so three supporting columns were added beneath the lower outer spheres.
Inside, tubes about 3 metres wide run along the edges of the cube and from each corner to the centre, carrying stairs and escalators, while the vertical axis holds a lift that was the fastest in Europe when it was installed, rising at about 5 metres per second. Six of the nine spheres are open to visitors: the lowest is given to the story of the 1950s and Expo 58, others to exhibitions and events, and the top sphere offers a panorama over Brussels. The three upper outer spheres, which have no vertical support, have always been closed.
The Atomium was meant to stand for six months. Its popularity kept postponing the demolition until the city decided to keep it, though for decades it received little care. Between 2004 and 2006 it was thoroughly renovated: the faded aluminium panels that originally covered the spheres, and that gave the building its name, a blend of "atom" and "aluminium", were replaced with stainless steel, and LED lights were set along the seams of each sphere so that at night they can flash in sequence like electrons in orbit.
Getting there
The Atomium is in Laeken, in the north of the City of Brussels; Heysel/Heizel station on metro line 6 is nearby. The nearest airport is Brussels Airport (BRU), about 10 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Royal Greenhouses of Laeken 1.5 km · botanical-garden
- Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries 5.3 km · covered-passageway
- Grand-Place 5.4 km · square
- Horta Museum 7.9 km · museum
- Hallerbos 21.1 km · forest
- Lion's Mound 24.5 km · battlefield
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Atomium is a landmark modernist building in Brussels, Belgium, originally constructed as the centrepiece of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Designed by the engineer André Waterkeyn and the architects André and Jean Polak as a tribute to scientific progress, as well as to symbolise Belgian engineering skills at the time, it is located on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Laeken, where the exhibition took place. It is the city's most popular tourist attraction, and serves as a museum, an art centre and a cultural destination.
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