Kanal Architecture

Its exhibitions draw on exceptional collections, setting them in dialogue with contemporary thinking and practice. Throughout the year, professionals, enthusiasts and the wider public gather to explore these themes through a rich programme of exhibitions, lectures, debates, guided tours, publications and activities for children. What unites them all is a shared ambition: to shape the city together.

Long based on Rue de l'Ermitage in Ixelles, the CIVA Foundation became the Museum of Architecture, Landscape and Urban Ecosystems, under the name Kanal Architecture, when it moved to Kanal-Centre Pompidou in 2026. The move and the new name open a new chapter in the institution's history. Far more than an administrative or symbolic transition, they mark a genuine shift in scale and visibility. Kanal Architecture nonetheless remains an institution independent of Kanal.

History

Kanal Architecture (formerly the CIVA Foundation) was founded in 2016 at the initiative of the Brussels-Capital Region. The aim was to bring the resources, collections and expertise devoted to architecture, urban planning, landscape and urban ecosystems together under one roof. As a public-benefit foundation, it unites the knowledge of several Brussels associations formerly active in these fields.

Its roots, however, run much deeper. They reach back to associations that have worked to preserve, study and promote the architectural and landscape heritage of Brussels since the 1960s.

Two of them emerged in that decade, at a time when the city's heritage was under particular threat: the Archives d'Architecture Moderne (AAM) and the Sint-Lukasarchief, which merged in 2017. Three more followed in the 1990s, broadening the movement further: the Fondation pour l'Architecture, which raises public awareness of architecture and urban planning; the Bibliothèque René Pechère, whose collection is a leading resource on garden and landscape art; and the Centre Paul Duvigneaud, home to the unique collections of this pioneering Belgian scholar of urban ecosystems.

Alongside these five heritage associations stood a sixth: the non-profit organisation CIVA, created in 1997 at the initiative of the French Community Commission. Its task was to run the new building on Rue de l'Ermitage, designed to house these institutions and encourage joint projects. When the CIVA Foundation was established in 2016, the organisation was dissolved and passed its unifying mission on to the Foundation.

The Foundation's history is thus both brief, spanning barely a decade, and deeply rooted in the long legacy of the associations that came before it.

Today, Kanal Architecture carries this mission forward through its exhibitions, collections, library, archives and cultural activities. It fosters a culture of architecture, landscape and the city that engages with the challenges facing Brussels today, and it reaches out to all audiences: visitors and families, students and researchers, architects, landscape architects and adjacent professionals, garden and nature enthusiasts and public officials. Each is invited to better understand how the city is changing and what is at stake in its future.