Bruges city hall
| Bruges City Hall Stadhuis van Brugge (in Dutch) Hôtel de ville de Bruges (in French) |
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| General information | |
| Architectural style | Gothic |
| Town or city | Bruges |
| Country | Belgium |
| Construction started | 1376 |
| Completed | 1421 (original completion) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | - Unknown (probably Jan Roegiers; also possible: Jan van Rijssele or Mathieu Saghen) - Louis Delacenserie (restoration 1895-1905) - Jean-Baptiste Bethune (restoration 1895-1905) |
| Engineer | Jan Roegiers (1376-1421 construction phase) |
The Bruges City Hall is one of the oldest city halls in the entire Netherlands region. It is located in Burg Square, the area of the former fortified castle in the centre of Bruges, Belgium.
After a fire in the city's Belfry in 1280 the old Ghyselhuus, which had already fallen into disuse as the jail of the count of Flanders, became the meeting place for the city council. In 1376 the Ghyselhuus was pulled down and replaced by a new purpose built council building. Count Louis laid the foundation stone. Responsibility for its construction was given Jan Roegiers, and the project was completed, eventually, in 1421. The City Hall is the earliest late Gothic monumental-style municipal council building in Flanders or Brabant: its flamboyant opulence testifies to the city's economic and political power at a time when the population of Bruges is believed to have reached more than 37,000, or even 45,000 people.
The pioneering stone facade of the oldest part, which during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was several times extended towards the south, inspired in quick succession the city halls of Brussels, , Leuven and Oudenaarde. The building's admirers highlight the effect of the "Brugian span", referring to the abundance of repeating systematically positioned niches encompassing the windows, though it is not clear that this effect was invented in Bruges.
The statues under the stone baldachin-canopies on the building's facade have been renewed several times. At the time of the French Revolution all the statues were destroyed. A small number of genuine pieces are now included in the collections of the city museum. The crenelated facade is topped off with little turrets and the roof is decorated with its own little crests and dormers. In 1766 the door on the left side of the building's facade was repositioned to make the overall effect more symmetrical.
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Wikipedia