Take me to your leader, Brussels’ Atomium

It’s said that the Atomium is Belgium’s answer to the Eiffel Tower. There are similarities. Both were constructed as centrepieces of the World’s Fair, hosted respectively in Paris in 1889 and Brussels in 1956. Both were symbols of the scientific and engineering progress of their eras. Both were derided at the time only to become beloved icons. Albeit the Atomium, with ten times fewer visitors than the Eiffel Tower with its almost six million visits in 2022, has some catching up to do.

The Atomium has the same ‘otherworldly’ feel that Gustave Eiffel’s most famous creation brings to Paris’ 7th arrondissement. If anything, the Atomium feels even weirder. Walk through the Parc de Laeken and it appears over the treetops like a giant alien spaceship. An impression that remains close up. It wouldn’t be a surprise if a door opened and an alien lifeform demanded “take me to your leader” – something that would take about 18 months to negotiate in Belgium.

Coming during the Cold War, the World’s Fair was the first to be held after the Second World War. It was a big deal not just for Brussels and Belgium, but for the West to showcase its preeminence in both the arts and sciences as drivers of human progress. Forty four countries had pavilions, including the USSR and the United States – as a side note, the Russians accused the US of stealing their full size model of Sputnik 1, the first satellite to be sent to space.

Amongst all the international rivalries, the Atomium was undoubtedly the showstopper. Taking its lead from the sciences, it is perfect replica of the nine iron atoms that make an iron crystal cell, only magnified 165 billion times in size to reach its 102 metre height. Today it’s regarded as a giant sculpture, the sciences as art, but you can also go inside it. The giant silver spheres and connecting tubes host permanent and rotating exhibitions.

There’s a lift that can whiz you from the ground floor to the cafe and viewing galleries in the top sphere. Up here you have a 360º panorama over Brussels and the surrounding countryside. It was too hazy the day we were there to see Antwerp, but I’m told on a clear day you can. In 1958, the lift was the fastest in the world, travelling at 18 km/h. It still feels pretty exciting thanks to a glass roof allowing you to see the lift shaft on the way up.

The Atomium is the just about the only thing left standing from 1958 – although the US pavilion is crumbling in peace in a corner of the park – and it was never intended to survive this long. The plan was for it to be temporary, but the public took it to their hearts and the Belgian government decided to keep it. Thankfully the Belgian Congo section did not even survive the duration of the World’s Fair.

In what would be hard to even believe these days, the Belgian government decided to showcase its benevolent rule over the Belgian Congo, today’s Democratic Republic of Congo, by building what was essentially a human zoo. The terrible violence of Belgium’s colonial rule needs no retelling here, but bringing 700 Congolese to be a living exhibit for visitors to gawp at, sums up the degree of disdain with which colonised peoples were viewed by Europeans of the day.

Insult to grievous injury, the Congolese ‘village’ had a statue of King Leopold II. Millions of Congolese died under his brutal personal rule of the colony. The Congolese in the exhibit rebelled and the whole thing had to be closed down. It’s an incident that doesn’t get much attention today, but it showed that all the science and progress on display in 1958 wasn’t intended to be shared equally by nations and peoples. It still isn’t.