With the Stoclet Palace, built by the Austrian architect Josef Hoffman in 1911, the Villa Empain is certainly one of the most beautiful architectural masterpieces of Art Deco in Brussels. In 1930, at the age of 21, Baron Louis Empain had this private mansion of 2500 square meters built, on the prestigious avenue of the Nation which was later on renamed as Franklin Roosevelt Avenue. It is to the Swiss architect Michel Polak, with the collaboration of Alfred Hoch that this splendid mansion is entrusted to. Michel Polak is already well known in Belgium: one of his major works consisted of the famous "Residence Palace " (1928) and the dental institute George Eastman in the Leopold Parc.
Villa Empain is het derde deel van de reeks Geschiedenis en Restauratie van de Directie Monumenten en Landschappen. Het boek beschrijft de architectonische complexiteit en de decoratieve schoonheid van de villa, een hoogtepunt van de Brusselse art deco.