Our Lady - Cathedral

The people of Ghent were affluent and wanted to live lavishly. For this reason, they wanted to build a town hall that would be talked about for miles around. It was supposed to be that impressive. At the beginning of the 16th century, they took the bull by the horns and started the construction work. The original plan was for the court chamber (which until the 19th century was the official name for the town hall) to be a whopping four times larger than it eventually turned out to be. Two renowned architects were brought in for this: De Waghemaker, also known for the tower of the Our Lady Cathedral in Antwerp, and Keldermans from Mechelen. Everything was going well until 1540. The construction was progressing nicely, and the town hall was gradually being built in the then fashionable style, namely late Gothic. However, Emperor Charles threw a spanner in the works. The man had a fondness for his birthplace, but he was so affected by the defiance of the people of Ghent that he decided to punish them by not only making them parade through the city center in their pajamas with a noose around their necks but also by seizing all the money they had saved up for the construction of their town hall. It took almost half a century for the financial pit to be filled and for the works to resume. However, by that time, the late Gothic style was completely out of fashion, so they decided to abandon the old plan and continue building in the new trendy style, the Renaissance.

Tsjoen