Souvenir of the Atomium

The first universal exhibition after the Second World War, Expo 58 in Brussels, celebrated the ‘evaluation of the world for a more humane world’. The re-established peace was promoted, even if the traumas of the war were still fresh. Scientific progress was the central theme, but the value of science and technology depended on how it was used. In this context, civil nuclear power was given pride of place at Expo 58. As an American newspaper predicted in January 1957: ‘The atomic age is going to have its first world’s fair’. The atom was featured at many pavilions, including in the colonial section, where the focus was on uranium from the then Belgian Congo. But its most visible representation was the Atomium, which, in four of its nine spheres, contained an exhibition on the peaceful applications of nuclear energy, opening with the slogan ‘Atom: Hope’. Any universal exhibition worthy of its name must have its own flagship monument. After several discussions and other projects, the Belgian engineer André Waterkeyn chose to reproduce an elementary iron crystal enlarged 165 billion times. The Atomium quickly became the symbol of the Expo, both before the opening and during the exhibition, where it was one of the most popular attractions. Initially destined for dismantling, it was instead preserved, just as the Eiffel Tower was after the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1889. Restored at great expense, it reopened its doors to the public in 2006. The Atomium is a symbol of the city, and indeed of the country as a whole. (See other objects from our collection related to the 1958 World Fair)