The hour is late. A group of people is standing in a darkened railway station. All are looking in the same direction. Are they commuters checking an information screen in order to catch their last train home? Nope: a bunch of them are dancing and the first train won’t be arriving till the next morning.

Art center Recyclart organizes music concerts, art and photo expositions, lectures, workshops, performances, theatre, etc. in the peculiarly poetic Brussels-Congress train station. This station must be my favorite venue in Brussels.

This most quiet station is found underground. More particularly on the most congested train route in Belgium, right in-between the big stations Central and North. Built in 1952, it partly functioned as a giant air vent to let steam of the then still used steam trains escape from the train tunnel. Today, during weekdays, only a couple of trains stop here every hour. A small number of commuters working in one of the giant offices nearby quickly get off and on. After 19:00 and on weekends, the station is dead.

Except when an event is held! Then, the bar opens. The slightly decayed glorious modernist architecture and wooden wall-paneling turn into a venue hall. Light comes from the empty ticket offices, although these were closed down more than a decade ago. An underground evening takes shape in a faint hum and vibration of trains passing by…

Check out Recyclart‘s agenda to see if they have something planned in Brussels-Congress!