Area less than one acre NRHP Reference # 01000439 Designated VLR December 2, 1969 Architectural style International Style Architect Victor Bourgeois | Built 1941 VLR # 127-0173 Opened 1941 Added to NRHP 26 February 1970 | |
Location Lombardy St., jct. with Brook Rd., Richmond, Virginia Similar Hovey Field, Malcolm U Pitt Field, Arthur Ashe Athletic C, Egyptian Building, The Diamond | ||
The Belgian Friendship Building or Belgian Pavilion is the former exhibition building for Belgium from the 1939/1940 World's Fair in New York City. It now serves as Barco-Stevens Hall on the campus of Virginia Union University (VUU), in Richmond, Virginia.
It was designed by Belgian architects Victor Bourgeois and Léon Stynen under Henry van de Velde, and is notable as an early example of Modernist architecture in the United States. Due to the outbreak of World War II, the Pavilion could not be returned to Belgium. The Belgian government sponsored a competition to determine the building's new home. VUU won, and the Pavilion moved to Richmond in 1941 as VUU's Belgian Friendship Building. Through 1997, the university's library was also located in the Belgian Friendship Building. The building was damaged by Hurricane Isabel in 2003. It is now VUU's gymnasium.