Opening of the Mundaneum non-profit making organisation
The building is renovated by architect J.P. Saintenois for the opening of the Mundaneum in 1998 in Mons with a staging by Benoit Peeters and François Schuiten, symbolising the very essence of the two founders of Mundaneum, Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, that is to say, gathering knowledge in a peaceful aim. At the centre, an imposing earth globe animated by a slow rotating movement symbolises the universality of the project of the two men. On the walls, the original filing cabinets that still have their bibliographic cards, a true paper internet. On the ceiling, a vault presents the information highway linking the continents together, a vision born of the two founders utopia; to see one day an information, communication network, and the aim of the Internet decades before.