It is nicknamed the “Space Egg”: an ethereal oval-shaped structure in a box that glows in the dark. Officially it is the Europa building, the new headquarters for EU leaders, due to host its first ministerial meeting on Monday.

Costing about €321m (£283m), this ultramodern, eco-friendly building has inevitably become a symbol of the European Union – for supporters and critics alike. And it is inside the glass egg – called a lantern by its designer – that Britain’s Brexit fate is likely to be sealed.

When Theresa May goes to Brussels in the hope of negotiating her red, white and blue Brexit, she will face 27 other leaders in a vividly technicoloured room. Carpets and ceilings look like a child’s kaleidoscope and are intended to symbolise the “united patchwork” of Europe.



The largest meeting room in the Europa building, decorated to symbolise the ‘united patchwork’ of Europe. Photograph: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA

The Europa building was conceived in happier times, when Brexit was an eccentric idea on the fringes of the Conservative party, the Greek economy was booming and labour market economists fretted about little free movement of people across Europe’s internal borders.



The construction of the headquarters was approved in 2004, when the EU expanded from 15 to 25 countries, taking in much of central and eastern Europe in one bound, then rising to 28 countries by 2013. Multiple crises have made the demands for space more pressing: EU leaders held a record 15 summits in 2015, compared with the earlier average of four.

A sign on what has been nicknamed by reporters the ‘Brexit door’. Photograph: Jennifer Rankin/The Guardian

The building is not just for summits, but the daily meetings of the council of ministers, the EU’s most powerful and least-understood institution. Ministers, diplomats and a small army of interpreters are in near-permanent session, holding more than 6,000 meetings a year, from haggling over fish stocks to sparring over tax havens.



For Eurosceptics the building is, inevitably, a symbol of EU waste. When he was prime minister, David Cameron expressed his “immense frustration” about the cost but failed to put a stop to the project. For the EU’s builders, the headquarters was intended to be a symbol of everything good about Europe: eco-friendly, transparent, united in diversity.

Solar panels cover the roof, rainwater flushes the toilets, the windows are framed by a lattice of recycled wood sourced from every corner of the EU. Neither has the past been obliterated: Europa incorporates a much older building – the Résidence Palace, built as art deco luxury flats in the 1920s, later commandeered to be the Nazis’ headquarters in Belgium, before eventually becoming offices.

Glowing in the dark, glinting in the occasional Belgian sunshine, Europa is a more thoughtfully crafted building than its nondescript predecessor, which was built on a bulldozed corner of older Brussels. The Justus Lipsius building, which will remain in use, could be the headquarters of a publicity-shy bank. A squat pinkish building, the windows are small and impossible to see through.

The eco-friendly building has faced criticism for its high cost and delays at a time when cash-strapped EU member states are wrestling with spending cuts. Photograph: Nicolas Maeterlinck/AFP/Getty Images

In contrast, the new EU headquarters has 3,750 windows made from ultra-clear glass. But the symbolism is misleading. The cameras will remain mostly switched off and the public will not be any better informed about what is said in Europe’s most powerful decision-making chambers.



Its designer, Belgian architect Philippe Samyn, also points to the symbolism of the building’s location, next to a traffic-clogged main road, with metro and overground trains running underneath. Europa is part of a working city, he says, not set in splendid isolation like the Kremlin or the White House.



The Justus Lipsius EU council building, the predecessor to the ‘Space Egg’. Photograph: Frencois Lenoir/Associated Press

As for the colours: “I wanted to make a friendly building, a joyful building where [leaders] would feel at home,” he said, contrasting the round meeting rooms with “authoritarian” squares and rectangles.



It might not feel very friendly or joyful if you are the British prime minister arguing alone against 27 about a €60bn Brexit bill in the small hours of the morning. One day, the union flag will be dismantled and the United Kingdom placemark cleared away. But a little bit of Britain will stay in Brussels. British oak timbers in the main facade will frame Europe’s Space Egg for years to come.