Laken

Laken (Dutch) or Laeken (French) is a residential suburb in north-west Brussels (postal code : B-1020), Belgium. It belongs to the municipality of the City of Brussels.

Architecture

The Royal Castle of Laeken, official home of the Belgian Royal Family is situated here. The castle was built between 1782-1784 by Charles de Wailly. It was partly destroyed by fire in 1890 and rebuilt and extended by Alphonse Balat. The French architect Charles Girault gave it its present outline in 1902. It has been the royal residence since the accession to the throne of King Leopold I in 1831. The domain also contains the magnificent royal greenhouses of Laeken, a set of dome-shaped constructions, accessible to the public only a few days a year. They were designed as by Alphonse Balat, with the cooperation of the young Victor Horta.

A little south of the domain, you can find the neo-gothic Church of Our Lady, initially built as a mausoleum for queen Louise-Marie, wife of Leopold I, whose children included Leopold II of Belgium and Empress Carlota of Mexico. The architect was Joseph Poelaert, designer of the famed Brussels Palace of Justice. The church contains the royal crypt, where the members of the Belgian royal family are buried. The cemetery behind the church is known as the "Belgian Père Lachaise" because it used to be the burial place of the rich and the famous. It harbours the graves of, among others, Fernand Khnopff and Maria Malibran and also features an original cast of "Thinker" by Auguste Rodin.

A little north of the domain stand the contrasting Chinese Pavilion and the Japanese Tower. The Chinese Pavilion was commissioned by King Leopold II. The halls are designed in Louis XIV-style and Louis-XVI-style and decorated with Chinese motifs, chinaware and silverware. The Japanese Tower is a pagoda, inspired by a construction Leopold saw at the Paris Exposition of 1900. King Leopold II asked it's architect Alexandre Marcel to build him a similar one in Laeken.

Other places of interest are the Atomium, the former goods station of Thurn and Taxis, Brupark, the King Baudouin stadium and the Heysel exhibition park.

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