Laeken Slot
Media in category 'Interior of the Royal Castle of Laeken' The following 4 files are in this category, out of 4 total. Interior view - Laeken Royal Greenhouses - Royal Castle of Laeken - Brussels, Belgium - DSC07198.jpg 3,648 × 5,472; 10.66 MB. Package ‘laeken’ February 5, 2020 Type Package Title Estimation of Indicators on Social Exclusion and Poverty Version 0.5.1 Date 2020-02-05 Depends R (= 3.2.0) Imports boot, MASS Description Estimation of indicators on social exclusion and poverty, as well as Pareto tail modeling for empirical income distributions. License GPL (= 2). New concept coming.stay tuned. Nu wij tot slot Laeken naderen, komt allereerst het enorme koninklijk paleis in het vizier. Finally, as we approach Laeken, first the king's mighty castle appears on the horizon. The Castle of Laeken is the official residence of the King of the Belgium. Gezicht op een slot in Laken, Hans Collaert (I), naar Hans Bol, Jacob Grimmer, 1530.
Laeken (French: [lakɛn]) or Laken (Dutch: [ˈlaːkə(n)](listen)) is a residential suburb in north-west Brussels in Belgium. It belongs to the municipality of the City of Brussels and is mostly identified by the Belgian postal code : 1020. Prior to 1921 it was a separate municipality.
Buildings and key features[edit]
Laeken Savkovic
Royal Castle[edit]
The Royal Castle of Laeken, official home of the Belgian Royal Family, is situated here. The castle was built in 1782–1784 by Charles de Wailly. It was partly destroyed by fire in 1890 and rebuilt and extended by Alphonse Balat. 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 former King Albert II and Queen Paola live in the Belvédère in the grounds of this castle, while King Philippe and Queen Mathilde live in the main castle.[1]
Royal Greenhouses[edit]
The royal 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 by Alphonse Balat, with the cooperation of the young Victor Horta.
Chinese Pavilion and Japanese Tower[edit]
A little north of the royal palace 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 its architect Alexandre Marcel to build him a similar one in Laeken.
Church of Our Lady[edit]
A little south of the royal palace, one can find the neogothicChurch 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.[citation needed] In February each year, a memorial mass for deceased members of the royal family is held at the church. In the nave of the church, the tomb of Cardinal Joseph Cardijn can be found.
Laeken Cemetery[edit]
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 The Thinker (Le Penseur), by Auguste Rodin.
Other places of interest[edit]
Other places of interest in Laeken are the Atomium, the former multimodal transit hub Tour & Taxis, Brupark, the King Baudouin Stadium and the Heysel exhibition park.
Coordinates: 50°52′N4°21′E / 50.867°N 4.350°E
Notable inhabitants[edit]
- Paul Ooghe (1899–2001), war veteran
- Stromae, a Belgian singer[2]
References[edit]
- ^'Opulent homes of Europe's royal families'. Daily Telegraph.
- ^lesoir.be. 'Archives - lesoir.be'. Archived from the original on 2015-09-25. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
External links[edit]
Laeken Slot Tower
| Palace of Laeken | |
|---|---|
Kasteel van Laken(in Dutch) Château de Laeken(in French) Schloss Laeken(in German) | |
Location within Brussels | |
| General information | |
| Town or city | Laeken (Brussels) |
| Country | Belgium |
| Construction started | 1782 |
| Client | Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria and her husband Albert of Saxe-Teschen |
| Owner | Belgian State |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Charles de Wailly |
| Engineer | Louis Montoyer |
The Palace of Laeken (Dutch: Kasteel van Laken; French: Château de Laeken) is the official residence of the King of the Belgians and the royal family. It lies in the Brussels region, 5 km (3 mi) north of the city centre in the municipality of the City of Brussels. It sits in a large park called the Royal Domain of Laeken, which is off-limits to the public. It was originally named the Castle of Schonenberg and is often referred to as the Royal Palace.
The palace at Laeken should not be confused with the Royal Palace of Brussels, in central Brussels, which is the official palace (not residence) of the King of the Belgians and from which state affairs are handled.
History[edit]
The palace was built at Laeken, then outside of Brussels, between 1782-1784 after the plans of the French architect Charles de Wailly under supervision of Louis Montoyer as a summer residence for the Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria and her husband Albert of Saxe-Teschen. Jean-Joseph Chapuis provided the royal furniture.
On 21 July 1803, Nicolas-Jean Rouppe, as commissioner of the department of the Dyle, received Napoleon at the Palace of Laeken. Napoleon stayed at Laeken with the Empress Josephine in August 1804 on his way from awarding the first Légion d'honneur to his invasion troops at Boulogne to his progress along the Rhine, and later during the Hundred Days in 1815 dated this proclamation prematurely from the palace:
To the Belgians and the inhabitants of the left bank of the Rhine. The ephemeral success of my enemies detached you for a moment from my empire. In my exile, upon a rock in the sea, I heard your complaint; the God of Battles has decided the fate of your beautiful provinces; Napoleon is among you; you are worthy to be Frenchmen. Rise in a body; join my invincible phalanxes to exterminate the remainder of these barbarians, who are your enemies and mine: they fly with rage and despair in their hearts.
After Belgian independence, Rouppe, as mayor of Brussels, received the new king Leopold I at the Palace of Laeken on 21 July 1831; the day of Leopold's coronation. The palace was partly destroyed by fire in 1890 and was rebuilt by Alphonse Balat. The French architect Charles Girault gave it its present outline in 1902. It has been the royal residence since Leopold I's accession to the throne in 1831. The domain also contains the magnificent Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, a set of monumental dome-shaped constructions, accessible to the public for a few days each year. They were designed as well by Alphonse Balat, with the cooperation of the young Victor Horta.
Upon their accession to the throne in 1993, King Albert II and Queen Paola preferred to remain living at Belvédère, a château on the grounds of the park surrounding the palace. The current occupants of the palace are King Philippe, Queen Mathilde and their four children.
Royal Garden of Laeken[edit]
The royal estate is surrounded by an immense garden, which is protected by a stone wall of several kilometres. The gardens are designed in English style; the vast parks of the Royal Domain include lakes, a golf course and artworks. Leopold II of Belgium was very closely connected with the designs of his private gardens. In the gardens his only son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, fell in a pond, and died subsequently from pneumonia, aged only nine. The king had trees planted for his newborn children, which still stand in the park.
There are various pavilions, including the Chinese Pavilion and the Japanese Tower. They were commissioned by King Leopold II and now form part of the Museums of the Far East. The rooms of the Chinese Pavilion are designed in a chinoiserieLouis XIV and Louis XVI Style. They are decorated with Chinese motifs, chinaware and silverware. The Japanese Tower is a pagoda.
Today only the king himself and his children use the garden, generally the gardens are closed to the public. The greenhouses and the gardens are famous for their unique varieties of trees.
In the gardens several colonies of wild Canada geese, hundreds of cormorants and other large birds live. The gardens are home to one of the biggest colonies of herons in the country. [2]
Royal greenhouses[edit]
The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken are located within the park and are attached to the palace via the orangery. The complex was commissioned by King Leopold II and designed by architect Alphonse Balat. They were built between 1874 and 1895. The total floor area of the immense complex of 2.5 hectares (270,000 square feet). The main greenhouses, such as the Congo greenhouse and the iron church, are all linked by flowered corridors spanning hundreds of meters. The complex is also home to the famous royal botanic collection which includes large collections of Camellias, orange trees and many plants originating from the African parts of the Belgian Empire. Many sculptures and Chinese vases can also be found within the greenhouses.
Other[edit]
Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of Zaire (the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo), built a palace in his hometown of Gbadolite modelled upon the Royal Palace of Laeken.[3]
Larken Sutherland Corpus Christi
Gallery[edit]
Main facade
A carriage at the Royal mews of Laeken
See also[edit]
Laeken Slot Shop
References[edit]
- ^Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, p. 129, at Google Books
- ^http://www.demorgen.be/opinie/laat-de-koning-en-de-reigers-met-rust-b1f03a32/
- ^Recovering stolen assets: Making a hash of finding the cash, The Economist
External links[edit]
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Royal Castle of Laeken. |
- The Royal Castle of Laeken at Visit Brussels
Laeken Slots
Coordinates: 50°53′11″N4°21′35″E / 50.88639°N 4.35972°E