Lakenhalle
Building · Ieper · Flanders
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This vast Gothic cloth hall in Ieper's market square was built between 1200 and 1304 as the trading center of Flanders' medieval wool industry, its 70-metre belfry once a symbol of the city's wealth. Shelled to rubble in World War I, it was painstakingly rebuilt between 1933 and 1967 to its original form. Today it houses the In Flanders Fields Museum, telling the story of the war that destroyed it.
The belfry that anchors the hall is actually its oldest part: Count Baudouin IX of Flanders laid its foundation stone in 1201, a century before the rest of the cloth hall grew up around it. When architects Jules Coomans and P.A. Pauwels took on the postwar rebuild, they chose a faithful, rigorous restitution over any modern reinterpretation, working from surveys made before and during the war rather than reinventing the design. The finished belfry now carries a carillon of 49 bells, expanded from a smaller 36-bell set installed in 1934. Climbing its 231 steps brings you out above the market square with a view that takes in both the rebuilt old town and the flat fields around Ypres where the war that destroyed the hall was fought.
What you see
A single unbroken facade of tall arched windows and blind niches runs the length of the market square, framed by corner turrets with the belfry rising from its center.
Practical
The In Flanders Fields Museum occupies the hall's second floor; climbing the belfry for the view over the city is a separate 231-step ascent.
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Common questions
- Why stop at Lakenhalle on a bike ride?
- This vast Gothic cloth hall in Ieper's market square was built between 1200 and 1304 as the trading center of Flanders' medieval wool industry, its 70-metre belfry once a symbol of the city's wealth. Shelled to rubble in World War I, it was painstakingly rebuilt between 1933 and 1967 to its original form. Today it houses the In Flanders Fields Museum, telling the story of the war that destroyed it.
- Where is Lakenhalle?
- Lakenhalle is in Ieper, Flanders (Belgium).