Beautiful And Historic Arcade Galleries Of Brussels

The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert are located in the very center of Brussels, just a few meters away from the Grand Place. They are the union of two major sections constituted by the King’s Gallery and the Queen’s Gallery, separated by an arcade, and a smaller side gallery called thePrince Gallery. The Royal Gallery, with its twin regular façades and covered by a glass window, was designed by the architect Jean-Pierre Cluysenaer in 1837, and its construction started a decade later. The ambition of the architect was to transform an area of ill-lit alleyways into a place where the bourgeoisie and people of fashion could take advantage of luxurious shops and cafés, even during the cold Belgian winter.

The gallery was inaugurated by King Leopold I in 1847, but its present name, passage Saint-Hubert, came a century later. Today, the gallery hosts traditional as well as modern luxurious boutiques, chocolate shops, cafés, and bookshops. A real microcosm within the city, the gallery also boasts a cultural dimension, embodied by two theaters; the Théâtre Royal des Galeries and the Théâtre du Vaudeville, both dating back to the mid 19th century, and the art-house Cinéma Galeries.

Jean-Pierre Cluysenaer is also the designer of the Galerie Bortier, a covered passage placed between Mont des Arts and the Grand Place. Inaugurated in 1848, its baroque external façade is actually a century older. It was named after Sir Bortier, who, after buying some land in the area, proposed to the city of Brussels the construction of the first covered market (marché de la Madeleine). The gallery originally constituted a part of the market, which was destroyed decades later, and it offered a passage between two adjacent streets. Today, the Bortier Gallery is well known by book lovers, as it hosts, almost exclusively, second-hand book shops.

The rue Neuve is one of the most famous shopping streets in Brussels, and in contrast with the colored store signs of modern shops, a stone arcade on one side of the street opens up to the Passage du Nord. This arcade gallery links the rue Neuve with boulevard Adolphe Max, close to place De Brouckère.
Designed by the architect Henri Riek, its construction began in 1881 and the arcade opened to the public the following year. The building of the passage followed the covering of the Senne, one of the defining events in Brussels’ history. With the growth of the city in the 19th century, the river became less navigable and more polluted to the point that King Leopold II expressed to the young Mayor, Jules Anspach, his wish to see it covered before the end of his reign. As a result, in 1865, a project was approved that rectified the river’s course, eliminated some secondary river branches and covered one part. Construction of several major boulevards in the center of Brussels ensued.

The Passage du Nord is characterized by a number of baroque statues, an element that was relatively unusual at the time, and abundant decorations adorning its two façades. It originally contained 32 shops and a museum. Nowadays, due to subsequent renovations, the number of shops in the passage is only 20, and the museum rooms have been included in the adjacent Métropole hotel.

Moving into the 20th century, a number of arcades were built in Brussels, among which was the Galerie Ravenstein. From rue Ravenstein, a porch gives access to two monumental staircases that lead down to the arcade, ten meters below in front of the Central station. The gallery is lit by a vault in concrete and glass structured in concentric circles and today mainly hosts offices, shops and cafés, plus a parking area in the basement.

The gallery was built between 1954 and 1958 by the architect Alexis Dumont and his nephew Philippe Dumont, and are among the main exponents of Belgian monumental architecture. It was conceived as an integral part of the North-South junction, whose construction took more than 40 years and was interrupted by the two world wars. At the end of the 19th century, travelers heading to Brussels by train, arriving either at the North station or the South one, found themselves in great difficulties trying to cross the city to reach the other one. This situation spurred the proposal of a number of projects, culminating with the construction of Brussels Central station and its mainly underground railway system. This process gave the government the opportunity to redesign a great part of the city center and to destroy entire popular districts. The new junction was inaugurated by King Baudouin in 1952, in the central hall of the new Central station.

Built as a project by the famous Belgian architect Victor Horta, the Galerie Horta is characterized by a porch with large columns and a monumental staircase. It was closed to the public in the 1980s, and then restored and reopened in 2008. The gallery constitutes a passage between the Central station and the rue du Marché aux Herbes, and is mostly used by commuters to reach the station. As a result, only a few shops are open in the gallery, whose main attraction is the access to the Museum of Original Figurines (MOOF) and a shop entirely dedicated to the Smurfs.