Rockoxhuis

In 1603, Mayor Nicolaas Rockox (1560-1640) bought the house known as "Sint-Jacob", also called "Den Gulden Rinck" (number 10) and the adjoining house (number 12) and rebuilt both properties into a single entity in Renaissance style. In 1714, the house was sold and partially renovated. This is referenced by the year 1715 on the pediment of number 10. Restoration works took place from 1916-1919 commissioned by the Reverend Mr. Cl. Ulens: architect Jules Bilmeyer built the gallery with corner tower in the large inner courtyard in 1916. His son, architect Edouard Bilmeyer, restored the facade of number 10 in 1919, adding the gate in Baroque style. A thorough restoration occurred from 1972-1977 under the direction of architects Joseph Louis Stynen and Richard De Bruyn, commissioned by the Kredietbank, which had rejected the property in 1970. Since then, it has been the Rockox House museum. A patrician residence with nine bays and two building levels, with a natural stone facade (number 10) on the right and a brick and sandstone facade (number 12) on the left. Number 10. Five bays and two building levels under a gabled roof with side gables of ten and nine steps, raised with a late Baroque dormer window between the wings under a triangular pediment - with the year 1715 in a cartouche - crowned with a gilded weather vane. Anchored sandstone facade with rectangular basement mouths, scaffolding holes, and a hollow rounded eave; adapted rectangular windows under a wedge-shaped relieving system (preserved on the upper floor) on the ground floor with bars and on the upper floor with continuous profiled lower sills. A hardstone portal was installed following the facade restoration by Edouard Bilmeyer in 1919, replacing a late-classical gate from around 1800. The portal is inspired by that of the beguinage in Diest: wooden round-arched door with a sculpted broker in a fluted round arch on block pilasters with lion heads and Ionic capitals; cartouche key with inscription: "In this house / lived / NIC. ROCKOX / Mayor / of this city / 1603-1640". Spandrels with volutes and moulding, heavy entablature under a corniced water table with volutes and top vases, and in the center, a richly framed round-arched niche containing a depiction of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows by E. Declercq from 1921, made of German sandstone.

Onroerend Erfgoed Vlaanderen