Palais de Justice, Brussels

Palace of Justice

  • Palais de justice de Bruxelles (in French)
  • Justitiepaleis van Brussel (in Dutch)

Main façade being renovated
General information
Architectural style
Location Brussels, Belgium
Coordinates 50°50′12″N 4°21′06″E / 50.83667°N 4.35167°E / 50.83667; 4.35167Coordinates: 50°50′12″N 4°21′06″E / 50.83667°N 4.35167°E / 50.83667; 4.35167
Current tenants Belgian court
Construction started 31 October 1866 (31 October 1866)
Inaugurated 15 October 1883
Cost 45 million Belgian franc
Client Belgian government
Owner Belgian government
Height 104 metres (341 ft)
Dimensions
Diameter 160 by 150 metres (520 ft × 490 ft)
Technical details
Floor area 26,000 square metres (280,000 sq ft)
Design and construction
Architect Joseph Poelaert

The Palace of Justice (French: Palais de Justice, Dutch:  Justitiepaleis ) or Law Courts of Brussels is the most important court building in Belgium.

It was built between 1866 and 1883 in the eclectic style by the celebrated architect Joseph Poelaert. The total cost of the construction, land and furnishings was somewhere in the region of 45 million Belgian francs. It is reputed to be the largest building constructed in the 19th century.[1] It is a notable landmark of Brussels.

History

Inception

Depiction of the Palais on a pre-1944 postcard. Note the lower dome

In 1860, during the reign of Leopold I, a Royal decree announced the building of the Palace of Justice and an international architecture contest was organised for its design. The designs entered in the contest were found to be unacceptable and were thus rejected. The then minister of justice Tesch appointed Joseph Poelaert to design the building in 1861. The first stone was laid on October 31, 1866, and the building was inaugurated on October 15, 1883, four years after Poelaert's death in 1879.

For the building of the Palace of Justice, a section of the Marollen neighbourhood was demolished, while most of the park belonging to the House of Mérode was also expropriated. The 75 landlord owners of the houses,[2] many of whom lived in their homes, received large indemnities, while the other inhabitants, about a hundred, were also forced to move by the Belgian government, though they were compensated with houses in the garden city "Tillens-Roosendael" (French: cité-jardin Tillens-Roosendael) in the municipality of Uccle, in the Quartier du Chat.[3]

Poelaert himself lived in the Marollen neighbourhood in a house only a few hundred metres from the building, a house adjoining his vast offices and workshops.[4][5] It is thus unlikely he saw himself as ruining the neighbourhood.

As a result of the forced relocation of so many people, the word architect became one of the most serious insults in Brussels.[6]

The Palace's location is on the Galgenberg hill, where in the Middle Ages convicted criminals were hanged.[6]

View from "The Hotel, Brussels" (then Hilton) in 2009.

The building includes huge interior statues of Demosthenes and Lycurgus, by sculptor Pierre Armand Cattier, and figures of Roman jurists Cicero and Ulpian, by Antoine-Félix Bouré. Although the construction took place during the reign of Léopold II, he showed little interest in the building, and it's not considered part of his extensive architectural program in Brussels or his legacy as the "Builder-King".

Renovation

At the end of the Second World War, on the eve of the liberation of Brussels, the retreating Germans started a fire in the Palace of Justice in order to destroy it. As a result, the cupola collapsed and part of the building was heavily damaged. By 1947 most of the building was repaired and the cupola was rebuilt two and a half metres higher than the original.

Starting in 2003, renovations have begun on the building. These renovations pertain to the repair and strengthening of the roof structure and the walls as well as putting a new layer on the gilded cupola. Progress is slow, and in 2013, it was reported that the decade-old scaffolding was so rusted and unsafe that the scaffolding itself was in need of renovation.[7]

Dimensions

At the centre of the building looking upwards towards the dome
Statue of Lycurgus of Sparta

The Brussels Palace of Justice is bigger than St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The building is currently 160 by 150 meters,[1] and has a total built ground surface of 26,000 m². The 104[8] meter high dome weighs 24,000 tons. The building has 8 courtyards with a surface of 6000 m², 27 large court rooms and 245 smaller court rooms and other rooms. Situated on a hill, there is a level difference of 20 meters between the upper and lower town, which results in multiple entrances to the building at different levels.

Influence

There is a well-known story that Adolf Hitler was reportedly fond of the building. Albert Speer stated in his book Inside the Third Reich[9] that he had been dispatched to Brussels in 1940 to study the building.

Although lacking the dome and being much smaller, the Justice Palace in Lima in Peru, which houses the Supreme Court of Peru, is based upon the Brussels Palace of Justice.

References

  1. 1 2 Unesco World Heritage: Le Palais de Justice de Bruxelles
  2. ↑ AVB, Liste des expropriations, publiée dans Poelaert et son temps, p.271: Plan du géomètre Van Keerbergen indiquant les propriétés nécessaires à l'érection du Palais de Justice de Poelaert, 9 février 1863 (A.V.B., T.P., 26.242).
  3. ↑ Louis Quiévreux, Bruxelles, notre capitale: histoire, folklore, archéologie, 1951, p. 257: "Ceux qui lui donnèrent ce sobriquet, ce furent les expulsés de la «partie» des Marolles démolie afin que puisse être érigé le colosse de la place Louise. La rue des Sabots, celle de l’Artifice et d’autres encore étant condamnées, on transplanta leurs habitants dans un quartier riant et campagnard; celui du Chat, à Uccle, à la limite de Forest.
  4. ↑ Poelaert et son temps, Bruxelles, (catalogue exposition), 1980, p. 166: "Il habitait une maison rue des Minimes, voisine de ses bureaux et qui communiquait avec ceux-ci"
  5. ↑ Le Patrimoine monumental de la Belgique, Bruxelles, 1C, Pentagone, N-Z, Brussels, edition Pierre Mardaga, 1994, p. 466: Boulevard de Waterloo. n° 12-13 "Deux maisons bourgeoises jumelées de quatre niveaux."...."Le n° 13 était l'habitation personnelle de l'architecte Joseph Poelaert, au moins durant la construction du Palais de Justice et jusqu'à son décès en 1879. L'actuelle façade d'allure Second Empire, datant des années 1860, lui est peut-être même attribuable".
  6. 1 2 "Palais de Justice" (in French). Belgian federal building registry. September 29, 2009. Retrieved August 12, 2009.
  7. ↑ "Stellingen Brussels justitiepaleis zelf aan restauratie toe" (in Dutch). De Standaard. 30 November 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
  8. ↑ Structurae: Palais de Justice de Bruxelles
  9. ↑ Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich, Memoirs by Albert Speer. Translated by Winston. The Macmillan Company. p. 42.
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