Burg Square - Bruges City Hall

The Bruges City Hall is one of the oldest city halls in the entire Netherlands region. It is located in Burg Square, the area of the former fortified castle in the centre of Bruges. It’s the administrative center of the city. After a fire in the city's Belfry in 1280 the old Ghyselhuus, which had already fallen into disuse as the jail of the count of Flanders, became the meeting place for the city council. In 1376 the Ghyselhuus was pulled down and replaced by a new purpose built council building. Count Louis laid the foundation stone. The City Hall is the earliest late Gothic monumental-style municipal council building in Flanders or Brabant: its flamboyant opulence testifies to the city's economic and political power at a time when the population of Bruges is believed to have reached more than 37,000, or even 45,000 people. The statues under the stone baldachin-canopies on the building's facade have been renewed several times. At the time of the French Revolution all the statues were destroyed. A small number of genuine pieces are now included in the collections of the city museum. The crenelated facade is topped off with little turrets and the roof is decorated with its own little crests and dormers. In 1766 the door on the left side of the building's facade was repositioned to make the overall effect more symmetrical.