Butchery

Before the French Revolution, most professions were organized into trades or guilds with the aim of ensuring the quality of products and fair competition in sales. One means to achieve this was to require sales to take place in a specific building: a hall.

The most well-known halls in our regions are the cloth halls, but another type was the meat halls or meat houses.

The stately Neoclassical building was constructed between 1779 and 1783 and is a unique structure in the Southern Netherlands due to its façade composition and materials used.

The construction program had two purposes: a new meat hall would be located at the bottom and the drawing academy at the top. Although dual use was common in the past, the stark contrast is indeed exceptional. However, it was precisely the architects Van Der Meersch and Van Den Hende, who were tasked with drawing up the construction plans for a new meat hall, who had a few years earlier established a drawing academy on their own initiative.
The building was completed in 1783.

In the 1980s, the building was thoroughly restored and the municipal public library found a suitable home there.

Rik Gabriëls