Brussels International Exposition (1935)
world's fair in Brussels, Belgium
The Brussels International Exposition (French: Exposition universelle et internationale de Bruxelles; Dutch: Wereldtentoonstelling van Brussel) of 1935 was a world's fair held between 27 April and 6 November 1935 on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Belgium.
History
The 1935 World's Fair was the tenth world's fair hosted by Belgium, and the fourth in Brussels, following the fairs in 1888, 1897 and 1910. Officially sanctioned by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), twenty-five countries officially participated and a further five were unofficially represented. The theme was colonisation, on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Congo Free State.
The exhibition attracted some twenty million visitors. The Belgian architect Joseph van Neck was the principal architect of the fair and of the Art Deco Palais des Expositions (also known as the Grand Palais), with its interior concrete parabolic arches, and four heroic bronze statues on piers.
Among many other contributors, Le Corbusier designed part of the French exhibit; the Belgian modernist architect Victor Bourgeois designed the Palais des Expositions, the Leopold II restaurant and the Soprocol pavilion. The Belgian art exposition prominently displayed the work of contemporary Belgian artists, including Paul Delvaux, René Magritte and Louis Van Lint, boosting their careers.
The exhibition was photographed in colour by the Dutch photographer Bernard F. Eilers, which was a novelty in 1935.
The Palais des Expositions, and at least three other of the 1935 structures, were re-used for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo 58), which was held on the same site in 1958.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2748873. VIAF identifies the subject as 149810375. Authority coordinates are 50.897, 4.339. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1888, 1897 and 1910.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brussels International Exposition (1935)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.