Midway between Brussels and Antwerp, the village of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Waver is elaborately named for its neo-Gothic Our Lady of Waver church. But its greatest heritage treasure is the sprawling Ursuline convent school and its Winter Garden, an art nouveau gem built in 1900 for the Ursuline nuns. After a two-year renovation, the palm-filled Winter Garden has opened to the public for the first time, bringing architecture and design aficionados to this quiet Flemish neighbourhood.

Belgium was a global centre for art nouveau when the sisters commissioned a local band of architects and decorators to extend their girls’ boarding school with an elegant, welcoming reception – suitably grand for the international families clamouring to enrol their daughters here. The bright tiled annexe, framed in elaborately carved wood and etched glass, had as its centrepiece a long-barrelled stained-glass ceiling illustrating ‘morning’ themes at one end and ‘evening’ images at the other. Shirking more traditional religious styles was a bold choice for the sisters, but they were ambitious adherents to the ‘l’art à l’école’ movement, which espoused modern, youthful, stimulating surroundings for education.

The region was on the front line during the First World War. And though the school suffered extensive damage, the vaulted stained-glass ceiling came through remarkably. In 1987, it gained listed-monument status, along with the Empire Corridor, Alpine Room, refectory, Piano Gallery and Grand Staircase.

Visitors are welcome to explore the entire 10-hectare site after the Winter Garden opens permanently on 24 July.

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