Golden moment for GrandPlace after extensive makeover

Brussels’ Grand Place is about to become even grander when workers remove scaffolding on Tuesday after the latest one-year renovation.

For the past 12 months workers  have been painstakingly cleaning, shining and repairing the Baroque façades of several buildings on the northwest edge of the square, from the Roi d’Espagne at No 1, which once housed the bakers’ guild,  to the former haberdashers’ guild headquarters in the Maison du Renard at No 7.

The entire makeover cost more than €1 million and was jointly financed by the City of Brussels and the Brussels-Capital Region. Some 31,000 individual gold leaves were applied to statues and other architectural features.

“Historically speaking, we are at the most golden part of the square,” Marie-Noëlle Martu, an architect employed by the city, told La Dernière Heure.

Over the weekend, workers did one last low-pressure cleaning and made other final touches before the scheduled unveiling. The restoration is meant to hold for the next 50 years, meaning that no further façade works are planned until after 2065.