Famous Landmarks in Antwerp
A Scheldt port framed by a Gothic spire and Renaissance halls around one market square.
Antwerp's landmarks cluster tightly around the Grote Markt and the banks of the Scheldt, the two poles of a city built on river trade. A squat medieval fortress guards the waterfront where the old town began; a few streets inland, a Gothic cathedral and a Renaissance city hall face the same market square, raised a few decades apart during the city's sixteenth-century boom. A merchant printer's house nearby recalls the same era's trade in books rather than goods. Later prosperity left its own mark: the stone station built at the turn of the twentieth century announces the rail and port links that still drive the city today, in a style well apart from the older core it adjoins.
Cathedral of Our Lady
1352–1521 · Jan and Pieter Appelmans
A single tall, openwork stone spire rises over the west front, a legacy of a second tower never being finished; at 123 metres it dominates a large market square lined with stepped guild-house gables.
Construction began in 1352 and the first building phase closed in 1521, though the church was never fully finished; it is the largest Gothic church in Belgium, with a 123-metre tower. Later architects, including Rombout II Keldermans and, centuries afterward, Jules Bilmeyer, Jozef-Louis Stynen and Guido Derks, worked on later stages and restorations. The interior holds paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and other Antwerp masters.
- The church has never been fully completed, well over six centuries after construction began in 1352.
- Its belfry is listed separately from the cathedral itself, grouped with municipal bell towers under the Belfries of Belgium and France.
Photo: Rolf Kranz (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Antwerp Central Station
1895–1905 · Louis Delacenserie
A monumental stone entrance hall opens directly onto platforms sheltered by a single sweeping arched roof of glass and iron, the whole approach built to impress arriving passengers rather than simply move them through.
The current station building was designed by Louis Delacenserie, with Jacques Voncke, and constructed between 1895 and 1905. It served as a dead-end terminus from 1873 until 2007, when a tunnel opened beneath the city and the station itself, allowing through trains for the first time. It remains the country's main railway hub and one of four stops on the national high-speed network.
- It operated as a dead-end terminus for well over a century before a tunnel finally let trains pass straight through beneath it in 2007.
Photo: Paul Hermans (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Antwerp City Hall
1561–1565 · Cornelis Floris II
A long, symmetrical stone façade with tiered classical windows and a central pedimented gable closes one side of a large market square, its restrained Italian-influenced detailing set against the taller, more ornate guild houses beside it.
Built between 1561 and 1565 to a design by Cornelis Floris II and several uncredited collaborators, the building mixes local tradition with Italian Renaissance detailing. It stands on the market square's western side and still serves as the seat of municipal government. Despite its civic function, it is classified among the Belfries of Belgium and France, a UNESCO listing shared with the nearby cathedral's tower.
- Its belfry is grouped for UNESCO purposes with dozens of other bell towers in Belgium and France, rather than listed on its own.
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Klaus with K assumed (based on copyright claims). (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Het Steen
1200–1225
What remains is a single low, thick-walled stone block — originally just the gatehouse of a far larger castle pulled down in the nineteenth century — smaller and plainer than its fortress appearance first suggests, and older than any other building around it.
Built between 1200 and 1225, this fortress was originally the gateway to a larger castle belonging to the Dukes of Brabant; the rest of that castle was demolished in the nineteenth century. As the first stone fortification of the city wall, it is the oldest building still standing there. It has since served as a museum and, at other times, a prison.
- Its Dutch name is often translated as "the rock" in English, though that is not its true historical origin.
Photo: -wuppertaler (CC BY 4.0)
Plantin-Moretus Museum
1576
The former printer's residence keeps its original rooms much as they were when they held the presses of the family printing business, set on a market square distinct from the city's main one.
The building on the Vrijdagmarkt served for four centuries as both the residence of the Plantin-Moretus family and the site of their printing company, founded by Christophe Plantin and Jan Moretus in the second half of the sixteenth century. It now houses a museum devoted to the history of printing in the city, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005.
- The same building served as both family home and print workshop for close to four hundred years before it became a museum.
Photo: Klaus Graf (CC BY 2.5)
History
Antwerp grew up around a river crossing, defended from about 1200 by the stone fortress now known as Het Steen. Wealth from trade financed a long building spree: construction on the Gothic cathedral ran from 1352 to 1521, the Renaissance city hall went up between 1561 and 1565, and the printer Christophe Plantin set up his workshop nearby in the same decades. The Spanish Fury of 1576 and the Dutch Revolt that followed cut off much of that trade and slowed new building for generations. A nineteenth-century revival, tied to the port's renewed growth, produced a rebuilt stock exchange and, between 1895 and 1905, the grand station that still serves as the city's rail terminus. The 1920 Summer Olympics, hosted soon after, marked the city's return to the international stage.