From, Beautiful Buildings in France & Belgium, Including many which have been destroyed during the war. Reproductions in Colour and Monochrome from rare old Prints and Drawings, by and after Prout, Boys, Coney, W. Callow, David Roberts, C. Wild and others, with descriptive notes, by C. Harrison Townsend, F.R.I.B.A.; New York: The Hubbell Publishing Co., 1916; pp. 38-41.
ANTWERP : HÔTEL DE VILLE
(J. Coney)
N the heyday of its prosperity the old Trade Guilds of this, the principal part of the Low Coutnries, all congregated in the Grand’ Place, the chief commercial centre of the town. Here were the Halls of the Archer’s Company, the Tailors’, and the Carpenters’, those —
mechanic guilds
Who loved their city and thought gold well spent
To make her beautiful with piety.
Here also, its simple, dignified façade speaking the security of well-established commerce and forming one side of the Square, stands the Hôtel de Ville.
40It is characteristic of the troublous life of the country that within twenty yeas of its building, in 1561, it fell to Antwerp to restore or rebuild the Town Hall after its partial destruction by the Spaniards.
It may be taken that neither this building nor the Cathedral, nor, indeed, any of the most precious historical monuments, suffered greatly in the bombardment of October 8, 1914, when the actual damage was confined to some of the houses round about the Place Verte and Marché-aux-Souliers, and in the rich residential quarters near the Boulevard Leopold.
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