If there's one Belgian comic that has traveled the world, it's The Adventures of Tintin. The reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy have traveled the world to solve mysteries, their stories have also been translated into more than 70 languages and over 30 dialects. These days Tintin has landed just outside Brussels and comic book lovers can visit him at the Hergé Museum.
© Hergé-Moulinsart 2015
Tintin is cartoonist Hergé's most famous creation, but certainly not the only one. The Hergé Museum in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium focuses on the entirety of Hergé's oeuvre, his life, and his influences. It's more than just a Tintin museum.
Visiting the Hergé Museum
© Nicolas Borel Architecte Christian de Portzamparc
After the passing of Hergé in 1986, the Hergé Foundation was formed. This foundation dedicated itself to identifying and categorizing the parts of Hergé's life and work that could later be exhibited in museums. In 2001 the site of the museum was decided: the Rue du Labrador in Louvain-la-Neuve, only 30 km from Brussels. In 2009 the Musée Hergé or the Hergé Museum opened its doors to the public.
The renowned French architect Christian de Portzamparc designed a building with modern lines, big spaces, and clear connections between each location. De Portzamparc's museum building now houses three floors, eight exhibitions, a café, a museum shop, a museum restaurant, and a small cinema. Visitors start their tour on the top level and end back at the museum entrance hall.
Musée Hergé exhibition
Each room at the Hergé Museum is dedicated to a specific theme. These themes are illustrated with original drawings, magazine copies, the author's personal items, items related to his work, and, of course, the original work itself.
Each visitor to the Musée Hergé is given a free audio guide. Each room in the museum gets about three explanations on the free audio guide, and they're really good. I'm usually not a big fan of audio guides as I like to visit an exhibition at my own pace, but there was so much to do at the Hergé Museum that I always finished listening to the explanations before I'd seen an entire room.
What's also nice is that the free guide isn't just an audio guide but functions a bit like an iPod. It has explanations on it but also shows you what it is talking about in the form of photos, extracts, and interviews with Hergé. Some of the exhibition rooms in the Hergé museum even have small quizzes on the audio guide that let you test your knowledge of Hergé and his work.
Room 1 – Life of Hergé
Room 1 of the Musée Hergé gives us a biography of Hergé, illustrated with personal items and some of his earliest work.
Hergé was born as Georges Remi in 1907 in Etterbeek, Brussels. Ever since he was a child he loved art and drawing, when he joined the Boy Scouts he started illustrating comics for boy scout magazines such as Le Boy Scout. That's also where his first real comic appeared as a series, TTotor, C.D. des Hannetons. Being in the boy scout movement greatly influenced Hergé and Tintin is often seen as the stereotype of a boy scout.
In 1924, Georges started signing his work with “Hergé”. It's a pseudonym derived from his own name: take the initials of Georges Remi, turn them around and you get R.G., pronounced as “Hergé” in French.
One year later Hergé started working at the newspaper Le XXe Siècle and three years after that the paper asked him to add a supplement for youngsters, Le Petit Vingtième. Tintin the reporter and his dog Snowy first appeared in 1929. In 1930, Hergé created two other characters who are famous in Belgium and even had their own cartoon on television later: Quick and Flupke, two real mischievous kids from Brussels.
© Hergé-Moulinsart 2015
Up until 1934, Hergé's foreign characters were often stereotypes, but when he met the Chinese student Tchang that year, who helped him research his new comic The Blue Lotus, he decided to conduct research for all of his future comics.
In 1940, the Germans invaded Belgium and put an end to Le XXe Siècle. Hergé moved The Adventures of Tintin to the newspaper Le Soir, controlled by the occupier. This and some of his associations made him a suspected fascist sympathizer.
He was arrested a few times after Belgium was liberated and forbidden to publish The Adventures of Tintin in any Belgian newspaper until 1946. Hergé would be accused of fascism and collaboration for the rest of his life, but he always denied having Nazi sympathies.
In 1942, the publisher Casterman convinced Hergé to color in all of his works to be published as full albums.
Four years later the magazine Tintin was founded and in 1950 the Studios Hergé opened. The Studios consisted of Hergé and his artist collaborators who would help him create the Adventures of Tintin and all its products. All work created by the studios was solely attributed to the Hergé except for three albums of Quick and Flupke which attribute Studios Hergé as the creator.
Hergé died in 1983, his last comic Tintin et l'Alph-art was left unfinished. He was a creator until the end.
Room 2 – Variety in Hergé's art
© Hergé-Moulinsart 2015
Hergé also drew advertisement posters, engravings, as well as other art. Examples of these works are on display in Room 2 of the museum. Despite his ability to take on multiple crafts, comics were always Hergé's priority as he believed he could only give 100% and that 100% was needed to perfect them.
Room 3 – Hergé's characters
© Hergé-Moulinsart 2015
This Room of the Musée Hergé focuses on Hergé's main characters, in particular, those of the Tintin albums. The audio guide includes some quizzes about the characters. For instance, it lets you test whether you know how to tell Thomson and Thompson apart.
Room 4 – Hergé and the movies
On to Room 4 of the Musée Hergé which shows a documentary about the relationship between Hergé's work and the movies. Hergé himself once said that a comic and a movie are basically the same things; the only difference being the characters are still.
Room 5 – The laboratory
© Hergé-Moulinsart 2015
Room 5 is called “The laboratory” because this room of the museum focuses on the inventions of Professor Calculus and the elaborate research Hergé and his team did for the album Explorers on the Moon. I read that comic as a kid and had no idea that Hergé even used a scale model of the rocket to get the drawings right! Fun fact: Hergé sent Tintin to the moon in 1954, 15 even before Neil Armstrong set foot there.
Room 6 – Tintin's travels
Room 6 of the Hergé Museum shows us all the places in the world Tintin has traveled to and exhibits some of the foreign objects that appear in the comic series. It also addresses how Hergé gained an interest in paranormal activity and extraterrestrial life later on in his career and how signs of that can be found in the Tintin albums.
Room 7 – Studios Hergé
Until he was 40, Hergé always worked alone. After that, he began to value teamwork. Part of that was also because of the huge task ahead of him to color in all his old Tintin albums. He kept drawing the characters but often left the background and the coloring to others. For works produced after 1950 Hergé had help from his collaborators at the studio.
Room 8 – Hergé's fame
© Hergé-moulinsart 2015
The last room of the Musée Hergé is dedicated to Hergé's fame and other famous people he knew. One of the things on display here is a portrait of Hergé by Andy Warhol.
Musée Hergé : the verdict
Usually, when I visit a museum I expect to spend about an hour there. If it's shorter, the museum is either small or not my thing; if it's longer, it was interesting. I spent almost two hours browsing each floor at the Hergé Museum as there is so much to discover! The available audio/video guide was superb, the building designed by Christian de Portzamparc impressive, and the exhibition very interesting.
The Hergé Museum comes highly recommended!
Practical information
Musée Hergé
Rue du Labrador, 26
Louvain-la-Neuve
Please check the official website for up-to-date opening days and times.
Not that you cannot take any photos inside the Hergé Museum, only in the main hall and the restaurant. I got my photos from the museum's press department.
By car: Musée Hergé is a 30-minute drive from Brussels the nearest parking to the museum is Grand Place/zone rouge.
By train: you can take the train from Brussels, the nearest train station to Musée Hergé is Louvain-la-Neuve located a 3-minute walk to the museum.
PIN FOR LATER
Musée Hergé provided my entrance to the museum so that I could write this post about my visit. As always, opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Corinne says
Sophie, This is definitely one of my absolute favorite things I’ve done in Belgium. I highly recommend it to everyone!
Sofie says
Oh nice! I’m wondering of many visitors know about it, as it’s still located outside of Brussels.
Andy says
This is top of my list next visit to Belgium – even before beer! I was raised on Tintin in both English and French and passed on the addiction to my daughter. We went to the comic museum in Brussels many years back but this has been on the radar since it opened. I always wanted to be a roving reporter because of Tintin; I guess a travel blogger is pretty close though :-)
Sofie says
I think you can call yourself the Tintin of the digital age or something Andy :D Let me know when you come!
samrat says
Sofie, I really enjoyed this post! Nice to know more about Herge & Tinitin after enjoying with them in my childhood – in the world of Rastapopoulos, Capt.Haddock, Calculus and of course Milou!
I always wondered why…when he goes to Nepal(in ‘Tintin in Tibet’), the local language spoken by the porters is written in Hindi, and not Nepali.
And another big pastime was Asterix, from across the border!
Sofie says
I’m afraid I can’t answer that question :)
peter says
Nice article but Tintin’s dog is called Snowy not Bobby.
Sofie says
My bad! I’ll correct that now. All those names in all those languages:)
Houman says
Amazing article. His work is a big part of my childhood. I wish there was a virtual walkthrough. I created one once I visited national gallery of Australia one afternoon.
Sofie says
Thanks for the comment, but I took out your link. No need to advertise your company here.
Houman says
doesnt matter. As long as you see it.
Franca says
This museum looks fantastic, very interesting and I feel so stupid for not knowing about it whilst we were in Brussels, we could have made it there somehow :(
Next time I guess!
Sofie says
Definitely next time!:)
A Lady in London says
I’ve always wanted to visit this museum. Sounds like it’s worth a trip! Thanks for sharing about your experience there.
Sofie says
Definitely worth the trip:)
Vira says
I am going to Belgium in a few weeks and the Hergé Museum is my main agenda there. I’m so excited and even more excited after reading this post. Oh I cannot wait!
Sofie says
Oh wonderful!
I can be as good as that you’ll enjoy it. It’s a great museum :)
Have fun!
Shahram Razavi says
It was a fantastic museum I have ever visited which has made a nostalgia. But I can not imagine how much cruel you are when the photography is forbidden inside! This is the age of Instagram so you should leave the lovers feel free to take some selfies and stuffs there. Please revise your policies!
Sofie says
Hey Shahram, I only wrote about the museum. I don’t run it :)
Ida . indonesia says
Now i am on the way to Museum witn my son and daughter and intold them this my fabouriye Book i read when my childhood …
i can”t image how fantastic Museum