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#BrusselsInView: Gongs dished out for Brussels innovators

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Nine Brussels cultural and tourist initiatives that are credited with helping to restore the city’s battered image after the terrorist attacks last year have been recognized. 

Each are said to have had a “real impact” in repairing Brussels’ reputation after 32 people were killed in the March 2016 attacks. The attacks at the city’s airport and a metro station resulted in a massive drop in the tourist trade, a trend that has only recently started to reverse.

The nine projects were honoured at the recent annual visit.brussels awards. Following a public vote, a panel of Brussels-based tourist industry professionals awarded prizes to those projects, which, in their respective areas, were said to have “enhanced the region's reputation in 2016”.

The winners had been whittled down from a total of some 63 projects.  Ranging from the city’s newest museum and an expo on Japanese art, to a food truck festival and chic hotel, each were hailed for their “energetic and original work” and having  played a key role in “reinforcing the European capital's global reputation”. The nine initiatives had, said the judges, made “the greatest contribution to the region's  standing”.

The nine winners were:

NEW CONCEPT:  '100 Masters' - 100 masterpieces of the Brussels Museums 
EVENING EXPERIENCE:  BOZAR Electronic Arts Festival
MOST NOTED EXHIBITION:  Ukiyo-e - The finest Japanese prints  INTERNATIONAL EVENT:  Couleur Café 
BEST GASTRONOMIC CONCEPT:  Brussels Food Truck Festival 
NEW EVENT & TOURISTIC LOCATION: ADAM - Art and Design Atomium Museum
HOTEL NEWCOMER:  JAM Hotel 
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS & FAIR: ART ON PAPER - The Brussels Contemporary Drawing Fair 
PUBLIC INITIATIVE:  Make.Brussels 

One of the winners, ADAM or Art & Design Atomium Museum (pictured), houses the Plasticarium Collection, a unique collection of design highlights, works of art, but also many everyday objects with one thing in common: they have all been produced in plastic. The collection is  the life's work of the Brussels collector Philippe Decelle.

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ADAM's Inge Van Eycken said: “It all started with a Joe Colombo chair that Decelle found  after somebody had tried to throw it out with the rubbish. That was the first item in Decelle's collection and after that there was no going back. He collected an enormous amount of  plastic items, highlights of design from the 1960s: mostly everyday consumer items that people will remember from their homes, their parents' homes and even their grandparents’ homes.”

Van Eycken added: “We have some 500 pieces on show in the ADAM, most from Decelle's  collection, but as he stopped collecting in 2000, we've augmented the collection with a number of more recent items. In all, the collection consists of some 2,000 items and from  time-to-time items are switched around and taken from our storeroom to be displayed.”

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