Top Historic Sights in Brussels, Belgium
Explore the historic highlights of Brussels
La Grand-Place
La Grand-Place in Brussels is a remarkably homogeneous body of public and private buildings, dating mainly from the late 17th century. The architecture provides a vivid illustration of the level of social and cultural life of the period in this important political and commercial centre. Around a cobbled rectangular market square, La Grand-Place, the earliest written reference to which dates back to the 12th century, feat ...
Founded: 17th century |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Church of Our Blessed Lady of the Sablon
Church of Our Blessed Lady of the Sablon is characterized by its late Brabantine Gothic exterior and rich interior decoration including two Baroque chapels. The history of the church dates to the early 13th century when Henry I (1165-1235), the Duke of Brabant, recognized the Noble Serment of Crossbowmen as a guild and granted them certain privileges, including the right to use a plot at the Sablon/Zavel as an exercise g ...
Founded: c. 1400 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Brussels Town Hall
The oldest part of the present Town Hall is its east wing together with a shorter belfry. It was built and completed in 1420 under direction of Jacob van Thienen. Initially, future expansion of the building was not foreseen, however, the admission of the craft guilds into the traditionally patrician city government apparently spurred interest in providing more room the building. As a result a second, somewhat longer wing ...
Founded: 1420-1444 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Hôtel Solvay
The Hôtel Solvay is a large Art Nouveau town house designed by Victor Horta on the Avenue Louise in Brussels. The house was commissioned by Armand Solvay, the son of the wealthy Belgian chemist and industrialist Ernest Solvay. For this wealthy patron Horta could spend a fortune on precious materials and expensive details. Horta designed every single detail; furniture, carpets, light fittings, tableware and even the ...
Founded: 1898 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula
The Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula has been since 1962 the co-cathedral of the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels, together with St. Rumbold"s Cathedral in Mechelen. A chapel dedicated to St. Michael was probably built on the Treurenberg hill as early as the 9th century. In the 11th century it was replaced by a Romanesque church. In 1047, Lambert II, Count of Leuven founded a chapter in this church and organi ...
Founded: c. 1047 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Royal Palace of Brussels
The Royal Palace of Brussels is the official palace of the King and Queen of the Belgians in the centre of Brussels. However it is not used as a royal residence, as the king and his family live in the Royal Palace of Laeken on the outskirts of Brussels. The facade we see today was only built after 1900 on the initiative of King Leopold II. The first part of the present-day building dates from the end of the 18th century. ...
Founded: 1783 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
St. Nicholas Church
The Église St-Nicolas is a delightful little church behind the Bourse in Brussels. It is surrounded by fine old houses that seem to huddle under it. This small church is almost 1,000 years old, but little remains of the original structure. Its 11th-century Romanesque lines are hidden by a 14th-century Gothic facade and the repairs made after the French bombardment of 1695. A cannonball fired by the French in 1695 ...
Founded: 14th century |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Chapel Church
The Église de la Chapelle (French) or Kapellekerk (Dutch) is a Roman Catholic church founded in 1134 by Godfrey I of Leuven near what were then the town ramparts. The present structure dates from the 13th century. Part of the structure was damaged by the French during the bombardment of Brussels in 1695 as part of the War of the Grand Alliance. It was restored in 1866 and again in 1989. It contains work by Jer&ocir ...
Founded: 13th century |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are a group of art museums in Brussels. There are four museums connected with the Royal Museum, and two of them (the Museum of Ancient Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Brussels), are in the main building. The other two (the Constantin Meunier Museum and the Antoine Wiertz Museum) are dedicated to specific Belgian artists, are much smaller, and are located a few kilometers from th ...
Founded: 1803 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Church of Saint John the Baptist
The Church of Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage, attributed to the Flemish architect Lucas Faydherbe, this building is a notable illustration of the Italian-influenced Flemish Baroque style of the 17th century. The church was part of the béguinage Notre-Dame de la Vigne of Brussels (an architectural complex which formerly housed beguines, lay religious women who lived in community without taking vows o ...
Founded: 1657-1676 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Horta Museum
The Horta Museum is dedicated to the life and work of the Belgian Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta and his time. The museum is housed in Horta"s former house and atelier, Maison & Atelier Horta (1898), in the Brussels municipality of Saint-Gilles. Housed in the Art Nouveau interiors is a permanent display of furniture, utensils and art objects designed by Horta and his contemporaries as well as documents relate ...
Founded: 1898 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Rivieren Castle
Rivieren Castle was originally a defence tower and the present-day castle was build in different phases from the 12th to the 19th century. Originally a possession of the Clutinck family, the castle later changed ownership several times until it finally was sold in 1973. Today, the castle is used for conferences, receptions, expositions and similar kinds of events.
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Halle Gate
The Halle Gate is a medieval fortified city gate of the second walls of Brussels. It is now a museum, part of the Royal Museums for Art and History. Built in 1381, the gate was named for the city of Halle in Flemish Brabant which it faces. The original gate included a portcullis and drawbridge over a moat. The structures that housed these are still visible. While the other six gateways and the defensive walls were demoli ...
Founded: 1381 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Hôtel Tassel
The Hotel Tassel is a town house built by Victor Horta in Brussels for the Belgian scientist and professor Emile Tassel in 1893–1894. It is generally considered as the first true Art Nouveau building, because of its highly innovative plan and its groundbreaking use of materials and decoration. Together with three other town houses of Victor Horta, including Horta"s own house and atelier, it was put on the " ...
Founded: 1893 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Forest Abbey
Forest Abbey is a Benedictine Abbey founded in 1105, beside a creek, a tributary of the Zenne, southwest of the city of Brussels. The abbots of Affligem, which had been the ecclesiastical owners of the parish since the bishop of Cambrai ceded it to them in 1105, decided to build a priory for women in Forest, Forest Abbey. The first abbess of the Forest priory was named in 1239. Also in the 13th century, the Romanesque chu ...
Founded: 1105 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Belvédère Castle
Belvédère Castle is a Belgian royal castle in Laeken which currently houses Albert II of Belgium and his wife Queen Paola of Belgium. Belvédère was originally built in the 1780s, but the castle was bought by King Leopold II in 1867. The castle was meant for his sister Carlotta of Mexico, but she chose to live in Tervuren which left Belvédère empty for a while. In 1890 a fire broke ...
Founded: 1780s |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Royal Palace of Laeken
The Royal Palace of Laeken is the official residence of the King of the Belgians and the royal family. It sits in a large park called the Royal Domain of Laeken, which is off-limits to the public. The Palace at Laeken should not be confused with the Royal Palace of Brussels, in central Brussels, which is the official palace (not residence) of the King of the Belgians and from which affairs of state are handled. The pala ...
Founded: 1782 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Stoclet Palace
The Stoclet Palace was built by architect Josef Hoffmann for banker and art lover Adolphe Stoclet between 1905 and 1911. Considered Hoffman"s masterpiece, the Stoclet"s house is one of the most refined and luxurious private houses of the twentieth century. The mansion is still occupied by the Stoclet family and is not open to visitors. It was designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO in June 2009. The Stocl ...
Founded: 1905-1911 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Saint Jacques-sur-Coudenberg
Saint Jacques-sur-Coudenberg is a neoclassical church located in the historic square of Place Royale in central Brussels. The medieval abbey church that originally stood on this location was demolished by command of Charles Alexander of Lorraine during his expansive urban planning projects, despite having escaped the great fire of 1731 that destroyed the nearby Coudenberg Palace. The new church was built in line with rue ...
Founded: 1776 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
La Cambre Abbey
The Abbey of La Cambre or Ter Kameren Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey in Ixelles, Brussels. The abbey church is a catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Malines-Brussels and home to a community of Norbertine canons while other parts of the monastery house the headquarters of the Belgian National Geographic Institute and La Cambre, a prestigious visual arts school. The abbey was founded about 1196, by its patroness Gis& ...
Founded: c. 1196 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Hôtel van Eetvelde
The Hôtel van Eetvelde is a town house designed in 1895 by Victor Horta for Edmond van Eetvelde, administrator of Congo Free State. Together with the Hôtel Tassel, the Hôtel Solvay and his own House and atelier it was put on the "UNESCO World Heritage List" in 2000 as the core of epoch-making urban residences Victor Horta designed before 1900. The visible application of 'industrial' materials such as st ...
Founded: 1895 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Château Malou
The Château Malou was built in 1776 in the neoclassic style by a wealthy merchant called Lambert de Lamberts. The current building replaced a small hunting lodge from the 17th century. One of the owners of the château was the orangist minister Pierre-Louis Van Gobbelschroy, until the end of the Dutch period in 1829. After Belgium gained its independence from The United Kingdom of Netherlands, the château ...
Founded: 1776 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Château du Stuyvenberg
Stuyvenberg Castle is a residency of the Belgian Royal Family, located in Laeken, Brussels. It was built in 1725, acquired for 200,000 franks by the Belgian State in 1840, and later bought by Leopold II who donated it to the Royal Trust. It is near the Royal Palace of Laeken, the official residence of the King and Queen of the Belgians. The first Belgian King Leopold I used the castle for his mistress Arcadie Meyer-Clare ...
Founded: 1725 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium
Rouge-Cloître Abbey
Rouge-Cloître Abbey is an Augustinian abbey, founded in 1367. The name Roodklooster or Rouge-Cloître means the Red Hermitage. Apparently, the walls of the original hermitage were coated in crushed tiles, which produced the characteristic colour. The hermitage was built in 1366 by a priest called Gilles Olivier and a layman called Walter van der Molen. William Daniel, a priest of the parish of Boendael, also ce ...
Founded: 1367 |
Location:
Brussels, Belgium