Historia Belgica

Experience Belgium through the ages.

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WAW

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The Postal Office, Ghent. A gothic revival building in the heart of the city. It was comissioned in 1889 and was finished in 1910. The architect Louis Cloquet designed the building with Stéphane Mortier for the World Exhibition of 1913 which took place in Ghent. Today it is a luxurious hotel.

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The ‘Europacentrum’ is a residential highrise building in the coastal city of Ostend. The construction started in 1967 and was completed two years after. The building received a lot of criticism due to the fact that before the construction, it was the location of Ostend’s City Theater.

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A panoramic view of Ypres, this picture was taken before World War I when the city was almost completely destroyed.

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The Paardenrenbaan (Hippodrome) was an old theater in Antwerp. Today only the front façade remains. A magnificent piece of architecture.

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Rogier International Centre (also called the Martini-Tower due to the noticeable Martini sign), a remarkable skyscraper in the heart of Brussels. In 2001 the building was demolished to make place for a more modern tower called the Rogier Tower.

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A view of Ghent from the Heirnis (a neighbourhood that is part of the city’s agglomeration nowadays). This is painted somewhere between 1820-1823.

By  Jean-Baptiste Joseph Wynantz

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A view of the triple spires in Bruges.

From left to right: The Church of Our Lady, The Saint-Salvator’s Cathedral and the Belfry

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La Gare de Liège, through the ages.

The first photo resembles the old train station in the early 20th century. It was modernised for the World Fair in 1905 which took place in Liège. The second photo shows us that the old station was replaced by a (at that time) newer building in Modern International Style. It stood there until the year of 2009.

At last, this is how the station of Liège looks today. Designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava. A replacement was needed because the old station didn’t have the required infrastructure for high-speed trains. The project costed 312 million euros.

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A postcard from Bruges, 1843. The drawing resembles the great Cathedral of Our Lady.

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The aftermath of World War I. Rebuilding the belfry of Ypres. During World War I Ypres was left in ashes after several bombings. Nowadays the city looks almost exactly the same as it did before the war.

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The European District, Brussels

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Ghent, a century ago.

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The Royal Flemish Theater, Brussels

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The old library, Ghent. The picture taken from the King Albertpark gives you a view of this typical Belgian modernistic building. The library recently moved to a whole new building and this one is nowadays used for various pop-up projects.

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Geraardsbergen, a postcard of the road towards the Church of Saint Bartholomew.

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The ‘Boerentoren’, Antwerp, Europe’s first skyscraper. Constructed between 1929 and 1932.