Town Hall

Tradition has it that the first Town Hall of Leuven was situated on Old Market Square. The second was located on the Great Market Square of Leuven. It had its place in a row of houses in front of St. Peter's Church, but outside the present building line. The construction of the present Town Hall started in 1439.

The spacious cellars of the houses were retained when the building of the faþade began. These cellars have been restored and can now be reached through a small door, at the left bottom part of the building.

Sulpicius Van Vorst, under whose management work had begun, died. Jan Keldermans II undertook the task and in 1448 Mathieu de Layens was in charge. He altered some details of the plans.

The belfry-tower that had to be built at the corner of Naamsestraat was left out so that the building got its flamboyant Gothic character with four corner turrets, two ridge turrets and a balustrade all around the building.

There are three floors. Between the windows there are oriels each of them with two niches; three corner-turrets also have niches.

The carved bases of these niches represent biblical subjects. The motif 'sin-punishment' is often repeated. These scenes had a didactic and admonishing function, not only for the common people but for the judges who resided in the building as well.

The 236 statues in the niches were only placed after 1850. The whole set has become the Leuven pantheon! Unlikely to the figures in the bases who wear Burgundian clothes, the persons in the niches wear the clothes of the period in which they lived. The two rows of the ground floor represent artists, scholars and eminent citizens of the Leuven past. The first floor displays figures who symbolise the municipal privileges and the patron saints of the parishes. On the second floor the Counts of Leuven and the Dukes of Brabant can be noticed; the turrets represent biblical figures.

Since the nineteenth century three restorations have taken place. The latest was finished in 1983 and repaired the war damage, suffered when a bomb scraped the faþade and did not explode...

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