The Leuven Town Hall is one of the most impressive buildings that I saw while on my trip to Belgium. I’ll be sharing more how I was able to visit the country and the great Flanders festival. I love architecture and I remember getting lost in the old city until I saw the Leuven Town Hall right across from the St. Peter’s Church. I was completely blown away by the detailed work and on the building and the Belgian tradition of decorating the town hall with an array of flags. The actual building had a lot of problems in its infancy, the construction started in 1439 came to a stop twice due to the deaths of the first two architects.
The building was finally complete in the 15th century but one of the most unique aspects of the building which is the 236 statues were added later. The tour guide that gave us a complete tour inside the building commented that the city later decided that they needed to add the statues around the late 19th century. The first row of statues depict people of importance to the city, the second row of statues depict people of religious importance like parishes and saints, and the first row or very top floor is the VIP section featuring the Counts of Leuven and Dukes of Brabant.
More pictures of Belgium coming soon, dont forget to check out the top 5 section for more things to do in Belgium & around the world
I am very impressed with the architectural designs of Leuven Town Hall. Are all the flags complete? I can’t wait for some photos of yours!
They are all complete.. will def upload more Mike
I wonder what can be found in the Leuven Town Hall. Are the flags set up all year around or occasionally?
That is some ridiculously intricate detail–incredible. Was it built as a town hall or did it use to be something else? Usually you only see work like that on a cathedral.
Only a town hall 🙂
Nice capture! What a building!
How nice to see an article about my home country Belgium 🙂
The official flags are there mostly the year round. They represent Leuven itself, the province of Flemish Brabant, Flanders (Dutch speaking part), Belgium, the European Community and the seven legendary, noble families of Leuven.
It is in fact the third town hall in Leuven. The Brussels city hall stood model for the magnificent gothic architecture.
On a visit to Belgium several years ago I captured a photo of the beautiful town hall. I collected so many photos I could not remember where they were from. In looking through architecture site there it was my picture of the Town Hall. I was looking for info on the statues & gargoyals (sp?). It is fantastic that in Belgiums lengthy history it still held onto them. Englands dissolution of the churches & public statues throughout England, Scotland etc. during its history were destroyed.