It may not have the Eiffel Tower’s global renown, but Belgium’s hi-tech Atomium hopes to super-charge its pulling power when it reopens next month, in all its shiny glory after a two-year renovation.
In fact, the parallels with the world-famous Paris monument are striking: the steel-and-aluminium Brussels landmark was built for a World Fair; it is architecturally unique; and it attracts hordes of foreign tourists.
Now the vast, eye-catching nine-sphered structure — representing an atom blown up 165-million times — hopes even more will come to see its gleaming newness after a top-to-bottom refurbishment costing â,¬27,5-million.
“I hope everyone will feel happy in the reopened Atomium, that is my biggest wish, which motivated the work to restore our country’s most symbolic building,” said Henri Simons, deputy mayor of Brussels.
Before its closure in 2004, the Atomium attracted 400Â 000 visitors a year. Organisers hope to double that to about 700Â 000, ranging from local Belgian families to tourists from Japan, the United States and around the world, Simons said.
The structure was originally only planned as a temporary exhibit. It was built for the 1958 World Fair, about seven decades later than Gustave Eiffel was asked to construct something interesting for the 1889 version.
Its creator, architect Andre Waterkeyn from the eastern Belgian city of Liege, designed the edifice to represent not only an atom but also Belgium’s nine provinces.
The name was reputedly chosen with Belgium’s regions in mind — the Latinate label designed to avoid irritating either Flemish- or French-speakers, long at odds with each other.
Atomium is also easily pronounceable by foreign visitors, thousands of whom visit the monument every year, despite its out-of-town location next the motorway ring road north-west of Brussels.
But by the turn of the millennium the edifice was starting to look distinctly tarnished, so city authorities decided it needed a top-to-bottom clean-up.
The result, already visible from far and wide on the city skyline, is even more impressive close up, its shiny globes-and-spur structure soaring to 102m. From the top, like the Eiffel Tower, it offers stunning panoramic views.
“The Belgian people are really attached, moved by this building,” Simons said, adding that it is consistently voted the country’s favourite landmark in polls.
Its popularity is such that there was even demand for the bits of rusting metal peeled off the structure: 1Â 000 were sold for â,¬1Â 000 each to Belgian souvenir hunters, raising â,¬1-million towards the renovation costs.
The renovation has not only polished the outside, now covered with weatherproof stainless steel, but also includes an array of activities inside — including facilities for school groups to spend the night in one of the globes.
To help tourists get there, the transport links from downtown Brussels have also been improved.
Simons is looking forward to the February 18 fanfare reopening. At first he hopes locals will flood in to see the new facilities, while a publicity campaign to attract more foreign tourists will be launched in April.
“Lots of Japanese come … We have to revive it as an international attraction,” he said. “The Atomium can’t hope to have the visitor numbers of the Eiffel Tower. But the comparison is a good one. And if Parisians want to see the Eiffel Tower — the Atomium — of Brussels, I hope a lot of them come too.” — AFP