• Opening times

  18/10/2025 - 01/03/2026: * monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday: from 11:00 to 19:00

Through the collection of the Vitra Design Museum, the exhibition Design and Comics: Living in a Box explores design and its relationship to the world of comics. To create a visual narrative that can be understood universally, comic artists have developed codes for conveying information, one of which is the placement of design objects. At the beginning of the 20th century, press agencies imposed comic strips on the American press landscape. As their popularity exploded in Europe in the 1920s, comic artists, led by Belgians such as Hergé and Franquin, began to incorporate design objects to illustrate their work. Comic artists from all over the world followed suit. In the 1930s, readers discovered the expanded format of comic strips in the form of comic books. During the 1940s and 1950s, new genres such as superheroes, horror, romance and science fiction gained in popularity. The more comics were published, the more design objects featured in their drawings. In the early 1960s, as the pop art movement took centre stage, the colourful, fantastical visual language of comic books left its mark on design, as seen in Maurice Calka’s Boomerang desk in 1969 and Eero Aarnio’s Tomato Chair in 1971. The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of new talents at the crossroads of design and comics, such as comic artists/designers Joost Swarte and Javier Mariscal. Today, as print versions of periodicals give way to digital formats, graphic novels and manga have become a source of inspiration for remarkable design objects such as the Manga Chairs series (2015) designed by the design studio Nendo. The exhibition Design and Comics: Living in a Box in Brussels will pay particular attention to design in Belgian comics, and more specifically to the Atom style and Franquin’s characteristic Belgian playful modernism.

A passionate collector and renowned expert in 20th-century Belgian design, Thierry Belenger has devoted more than twenty years of his career to highlighting Belgium’s design and architectural heritage. In 2007, he founded Archives Design Projects, an organisation dedicated to studying and promoting the work of Belgian designers and architects. His approach is distinguished by its profoundly human dimension, in which anecdotes, personal accounts and private archives complement and nuance academic research. As part of the Design and Comics: Living in a Box exhibition Thierry Belenger was also invited to curate the Belgian section devoted to André Franquin. In this section, he explored the subtle links between the world of the creator of Gaston Lagaffe and modern design. This unique approach once again highlights his ability to bring together different disciplines, eras and imaginations around this material culture.

• Opening times

  01/04/2026 - 20/09/2026: * monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday: from 11:00 to 19:00

As a testing ground for new materials and production processes, children’s furniture has left its mark on the history of 20th-century design. It embodies the ambitions, social changes and technological advances of its era. Gradually recognised as individuals in their own right, children are no longer seen as ‘little adults’ and have carved out a specific place for themselves in the home, society and the market. As explorers of the world, children learn, play and express themselves through the objects that populate their daily lives. After the Second World War, home design evolved: children’s bedrooms and playrooms appeared, offering young children spaces conducive to creativity and imagination. Furniture then became a tool for learning as much as a means of emancipation. Designers found children’s furniture to be a privileged field for experimentation. In the 1960s, the rise of polymers paved the way for new forms, free from traditional constraints. These materials made it possible to invent lightweight, ergonomic and playful furniture without sharp angles. Many designers embraced this field: Jean Prouvé, Alvar and Aino Aalto, Hans Wegner, Charles and Ray Eames, Nanna Ditzel, Bruno Munari, Javier Mariscal and, more recently, Stéphanie Marin, each offering a vision of childhood as a field of experimentation and freedom. In this new collaboration, the Design Museum Brussels enriches the narrative initiated by the Centre Pompidou by highlighting the Belgian contribution. Through pieces from its collections, the museum emphasises the vitality of design in Belgium, in resonance with major international narratives. It reveals an approach that is attentive to children’s needs, integrating ecological and educational issues from an early stage. From children’s bedrooms designed by Sylvie Feron in the 1930s to Jules Wabbes, to the current initiatives of the ecoBirdy duo with the Charlie chair made from recycled plastic, Belgian designers also introduce childlike singularity into the domestic space. Thus, design in Belgium reflects a creativity where formal innovation is combined with a reflection on society and the environment. Today, at a time of new environmental, social and technological challenges, children’s furniture continues to reflect its era. 3D printing, open source, recycled materials and local manufacturing herald a new generation of creative, responsible and accessible furniture. This universe remains a formidable laboratory where imagination, learning and innovation come together, reminding us that design, at a child’s level, also illuminates our common future.