Gothic marvel of the 15th century, architectural masterpiece of the UNESCO World Heritage Grand Place. Loaded with history.
This is a great landmark to use to navigate around the central city with its central tower highly visible from many locations. It is easy to lose sight of where you are in the low scale buildings, narrow streets and large blocks in the area, but keep an eye out for the town hall to get you back on track Make sure to see it up close in the grand place to appreciate its presence and scale, where it encloses one side of the open square.
Look carefully and see the imbalance of the two sides of the building. Wonderfully old and full of character.
This building is stunning from the outside, however we did not do a tour nor go inside so I can't review that portion.
We visited at a time when tours inside were not available, also on a day when it was pouring with rain, but we enjoying exploring what we could see on the inside as we wandered through the internal courtyards to the streets beyond.
The impressive town hall was built between 1401 and 1455, with its 96 metre high tower capped with a tall statue of St Michael slaying a demon. It is the only medieval building to have survived in the Grand Place. Opposite it is another tall building, the King's House, built by the Duke of Brabant between 1504 and 1536 (though subsequently destroyed and rebuilt).
It is worth standing and admiring the sculpture and the architecture on the outside and then you will realise that the building is not totally symmetrical. There is a story that the architect committed suicide when this was discovered, but in actual fact the two sides were built at different times.
