BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - The Atomium, an oddity of modern architecture touted as the "most astonishing building in the world", turned 50 last month.

Built for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels, the Atomium is a towering structure made up of nine giant aluminium-clad spheres linked with steel tubes.

The sci-fi design represents an iron atom magnified 165 billion times.

Originally planned as a temporary attraction, it became one of the best-known landmarks of the Belgian capital.

Belgium marked the anniversary with fireworks, concerts, exhibitions and special showings of classic movies of the late 1950s, including Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless.

The World's Fair was the hot ticket of 1958, attracting 42 million visitors over six months, including then American president Dwight D. Eisenhower and France's General Charles de Gaulle along with movie stars Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn.

By the end of the century, the Atomium had fallen on hard times. The number of visitors fell to just 120,000 in 2000.

But the building bounced back in 2006 after a two-year, 27-million euro (S$56.8-million) facelift. It attracted a million visitors in 18 months.

It now contains a permanent exhibition of the 1950s, temporary art shows and a gourmet restaurant 102m up in the uppermost sphere offering spectacular views along with local delicacies such as Ostend oysters and Mechelen cuckoo.

Domemiss this

YOU have till Monday to visit the royal greenhouses (left) in Laeken in Belgium.

Designed in 1873 by Belgian architect Alphonse Balat for King Leopold II, the 2.5ha complex is open to the public for less than a month each year - a century- old tradition - and usually during April and May as most of the flowers are in full bloom (left).

Some of the plants, like the complex, have a long history: There are varieties belonging to King Leopold II's original collections that still exist alongside the other rare and valuable plants.

For more details, log on to www.monarchie.be/ en/visit/greenhouse/index.html