History and renovation

This page has been automatically translated from French into English by a translation software. Automatic translations are not as accurate as translations made by professional human translators. Nevertheless these pages can help you understand information published by the City of Brussels.

   

A museum was created after increasing demands by other schools and after the success of a temporary exhibition on the sewers of Brussels (realized by a school of the City).

The site of the Pavillons de l'Octroi at the Porte d'Anderlecht were perfect for the project, because these buildings covered a part of the Zenne and the collector sewers.

The Sewers Museum was born on May 30th, 1988. The route took everyone to the underground Senne and the sewers and ended by a projection of slides. The visits were necessarily accompanied by guides, themselves sewer workers. In spite of a closure at the weekends, the attendance rate was from 300 to 400 visitors a month. An average of 4000 visitors a year thus.

The renovation

The museological arrangements of 1988 were not adapted either to the modern didactic tools nor to the technical evolutions in construction, the renovation and the reconstruction of the public sewers.

The interest of the public was however increasing. Opening in the weekend was more and more pressing.

A new Sewers Museum was inaugurated on June 26th, 2007, after a study that took almost 5 years.