House of European History — Attraction in Brussels

Uh, where to even begin with this experience. The good thing is that the admission is free, and the building is beautiful, as is the surrounding park. I visited in the morning, and there were very few people. I have social anxiety, and I would say I'm okay most of the time, but this was not a pleasant experience for me at all. First of all, I found it quite hard to understand where is the entrance. There were no signs that would show you where to go. In front of one of the doors were people from the staff, and I found that a bit odd. It took me a while to realise they weren't on their smoking break but guarding the entrance. When you get inside, you have to go through a security check which is okay, but this check was almost as if you were at the airport, which I don't get. What are you trying to guard in the museum? The museum is not the European Parliament😶 Again the security check had no easily visible guides on what to do and where to put things. I usually need clear/easy to understand instructions to not get all nervous, and at that point, my anxiety was full-on working, and I was so uncomfortable. Then the security guard came, and he was pretty rude. He didn't speak English. He decided to not talk to me at all. He just gestured with his hands!? And I would assume that if you work at the House of European History, you should have the education to speak English and be polite. As I was leaving the security check, he mumbled something and sounded very rude. Like, what is this behaviour? We are in a museum, not on a punk gig. I finally went in, and one of the ladies working here started talking to me and showing me where to put my coat etc. Don't get me wrong, she was super friendly and nice, but I found it strange as well because it was something I wasn't prepared for when visiting a museum. I donť want to talk to people if I don't have to, just put some signs on the walls, so I know where to go. To the actual exhibition... The idea was there, but the execution was not that great. The whole exhibition has five stories, and if you want to listen to/read everything, you definitely won't spend just 90 min inside as they claim on their site. You got a tablet with all the labels and descriptions and an audioguide. I'm young, and it was quite hard to manage the tablet. I cannot imagine my parents being able to use it, which is a shame. The labels and descriptions are only available on the tablet. They are not showcased next to the exhibit, which is quite exhausting because sometimes I want to have a quick glance at what the thing is and instead, I have to try to find it in the tablet guide. The tablet guide is also GPS operated, so you can only browse the story you are in, and I completely don't get this feature. It is a six-story building you will not get lost 😂 So why do we have this GPS feature? The GPS is also not very quick, so you have to wait for it to update itself so you can browse the exhibition on the next story. Overall, the idea was there, but the execution was not as good as I expected. The technology was a bit unnecessary and overwhelming for me. I would say the place is trying to look super representative, which I get, but at the same time, it should be tourist-friendly, and that just wasn't the case. I would say it's worth visiting if you are bored in Brussels and you donť have to pay for admission; otherwise, skip this and take a walk in the...

We came close to missing the House of European History as the indications pointing to this museum were not very clear.

Fortunately, a most helpful parking attendant gave us some directions and we found it after some meandering in the European Union (EU) Parliament grounds.

While walking through the aforementioned EU Parliament grounds, we noticed a garden populated with ostrige sculptures leaning forward with their heads buried in the ground.

That was a surprise. What government organization would want to represent themselves with such symbols?

After some detours, we eventually found the House of European History. It is a large museum, with 6 floors. The artifacts within focused on the history and development of European culture.

The idea, organization and content of this museum were all interesting.

The effort and expense that has gone into the creation of this museum is obvious.

The grand central stairwell is impressive. The intricate ribbon abstract sculpture in the center of that wide stairwell looks like it took some effort to produce (read expensive).

The exhibits show evidence of research and effort to showcase each section in a unique way.

The less good part is that most of the information in each artefact is delivered via an audio-tablet-guide with a beautiful, most likely very expensive interface, which was - at least for me - insanely frustrating and un-intuitive.

I kept going back to the introduction page. Clicking on the point in the museum where I was in the museum map did not lead to any related content. In the end, I simply abandoned the idea of making any sense of it. I stopped using it.

This is truly a missed opportunity, as the content that I did manage to hear was insightful.

The museum is free to visit, which is nice, I did not regret this visit, if only for the opportunity to take a picture of those ostrige sculptures.

Hopefully, a version 2.0 of their audio-tablet-based guide will improve the...

Pros: free. Then again, so is sitting in the park outside and enjoying the sunset, and I strongly suggest you do that instead.

Cons: You get handed a tablet as a guide in lieu of text displays, and the concept doesn't really work here, they would do much better to just have physical text in the main Belgian and European languages.

Some of the staff are nice (the ones explaining the concept at the entrance), but the ones in the exhibition area are very snappy with anyone who momentarily touches the glass cases around the exhibits.

The place is, obviously, an obsequiously pro-EU vanity project and it shows in the narrative they push. E.g. loftily blaming overseas colonialism for WW1 rather than having the guts to point the finger at individual European states (might be a bit awkward given who controls the European purse strings), drastically exaggerating the extent of urbanisation and the development of socialism so that you walk away with the impression that the average working-class European in 1914 was a firebrand socialist working in a factory rather than a pretty reactionary nationalist peasant in the countryside who looked on large government schemes (like the EU, for instance...) with scepticism. Add in a bit more Britain-bashing, like claiming that the Irish independence movement was about fighting for democracy rather than plain nationalism (which is particularly funny given men and women got the right to vote in national elections in Ireland in 1918 under British rule, earlier than in the majority of present-day EU member states including Belgium), US-bashing (bizarrely claiming that the EU was some kind of third way during the cold war??), and a kid-friendly interactive explanation of the EU's organs that no child would actually be able to grasp, and you have the essence of...