The Art Nouveau Winter Garden of the Ursulines has opened again after almost two years devoted to restoration and renewal. The stained-glass domed conservatory of the former Ursuline Boarding School in Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Waver, near Mechelen, Belgium (see cDf No 32) has been adapted to improve the site's tourist potential. The premises now boast an adequate visitor car park, a new fully accessible main entrance, a refurbished reception area and modern toilet facilities.

The current restoration process mainly centred on reinforcing the Winter Garden's foundations and restoring its historic tiled floor. After the 15,000 period tiles were removed, they were meticulously cleaned and cleared of mortar residue one by one while the floor base was carefully restored. Laying them again was quite a challenge, as each tile had to be placed in exactly the same place as it was before.

The renewal offers visitors an enhanced experience, improved by a new audio-guide route now being developed for individual visits. Using interactive multimedia applications, this will take visitors back to the heyday of the Ursuline boarding-school girls and nuns in the early twentieth century. Group visits are guided by thirty-five passionate volunteers sharing their expertise on the heritage and history of the Winter Garden, Monastery Church and Piano Gallery. The Ursulines' Winter Garden is preserved and promoted thanks to collaboration between the non-profit association vzw Wintertuin Ursulinen and the landscape protection foundation Kempens Landschap.

For more information:
info@visitwintertuin.be

A new museum devoted to the great Czech artist Alfons Mucha opens its doors in the centre of Prague in 2025. The home for Mucha's artistic legacy in the capital of the Czech Republic is the recently restored eighteenth-century Savarin Palace. Situated in the heart of historic Prague, the Mucha Museum promises not only to be a new cultural landmark in the city on its own merits, but also the first step in developing the ambitious Savarin Project: a large urban development directed by British architect Thomas Heatherwick for Crestyl developers. This will interconnect several historic buildings in a 15,000 square-metre complex that hosts cultural centres, commercial areas, open courtyards and green spaces. The project will also include a space to become the bespoke permanent home of Mucha's monumental masterpiece The Slav Epic.

The new Mucha Museum is to be a permanent space in which to display selections of works from the Mucha Trust Collection's rich holdings. Its inauguration in February 2025 will present the new exhibition "Mucha: Art Nouveau & Utopia", featuring ninety works from the collection, including paintings, posters, drawings, books and photographs. The show explores Mucha's artistic and spiritual journey from his most popular Art Nouveau poster designs through to the creation of The Slav Epic and the ideological vision that underpinned it. It has been conceived by the curator of the Mucha Foundation, Tomoko Sato, and staged by AI DESIGN, a Czech architectural studio that has collaborated with the Mucha Foundation on previous occasions.

For more information:www.mucha.eu