From: Belgium / Mechelen
Source: lottery / Lieve
Received: 13 October 2019 (15 days)
Sent: 28 September 2019
About:
The Town Hall of the City of Brussels is a Gothic building from the Middle Ages. It is located on the famous Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium, opposite the Museum of the City of Brussels. It is the only remaining medieval building of the Grand Place and is considered a masterpiece of civil Gothic architecture and more particularly of Brabantine Gothic.
The 96-metre-high tower emerged from the plans of Jan van Ruysbroek, the court architect of Philip the Good. By 1454, this tower, replacing the older belfry, was complete. Above the roof of the Town Hall, the square tower body narrows to a lavishly pinnacled octagonal openwork. Atop the spire, stands a 5-metre-high gilt metal statue of the archangel Michael, patron saint of Brussels, slaying a dragon or devil. The tower, its front archway and the main building’s facade are conspicuously off-centre relative to one another. According to a legend, the architect, upon discovering this “error”, leapt to his death from the tower. More likely, the asymmetry of the Town Hall was an accepted consequence of the scattered construction history and space constraints.
This building is listed by Unesco world patrimony.
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