Hendrik Beyaert’s National Bank building on Leopoldplaats was inaugurated in 1879 and closed as a bank branch in 2014. Its strongrooms now hold furniture.
Category: 🏰 Landmarks
Experience iconic landmarks in Antwerp with our curated selection of must-see attractions. From historic buildings to modern monuments, discover the city.
Antwerp Expo: the old Bouwcentrum keeps its halls full
Antwerp Expo, the former Bouwcentrum on the Jan Van Rijswijcklaan, has five halls and more than 80 fairs and events a year. Its owner also organises fairs, and that is the point.
Vrijdagmarkt, the Antwerp square that has auctioned furniture since 1549
Every Friday morning a bailiff and an auctioneer sell household goods from bankruptcies and estates on the Vrijdagmarkt, as the square has done since 1549. Under it, the district uncovered two Cold War bunkers.
FelixArchief: Antwerp’s memory in a harbour warehouse
Antwerp’s city archive has filled the Sint-Felixpakhuis, a warehouse of 1858 on the Eilandje, since 2006. It holds more than 30 kilometres of records, starting with two charters of 1221.
Battle of the Scheldt: how Antwerp’s port was opened in 1944
Antwerp was liberated on 4 September 1944, but no ship reached its docks until 28 November. The Battle of the Scheldt, fought mainly by the First Canadian Army, cost 12,873 casualties to open the river.
Handelsbeurs Antwerp: the world’s first exchange is a short cut again
Antwerp’s merchants built the world’s first purpose-built exchange in 1531. After nearly twenty empty years and a €60 million restoration, the Handelsbeurs is open again.
The Antwerp diamond heist and the salami sandwich
In February 2003 thieves opened 109 of the 189 boxes in the vault under Schupstraat 9-11. The police and the man convicted of the job still tell two different stories.
The University of Antwerp, at home in a mayor’s house of 1516
Antwerp’s university has existed in its present form only since 2003, and now has 24,827 students. Its roots go back to a Jesuit school of 1852, and its city campus to a mayor’s palace of 1516.
Antwerp’s beguinage, behind the wall on Rodestraat
Beguines have lived on a triangle of land off Rodestraat since 1545. The last of them died in 1986; the forty houses are still lived in.
The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, 363 years old and famous for fashion
David Teniers founded Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1663. Its fashion course, started in 1963, produced the Antwerp Six, and its most famous student, Vincent van Gogh, was told to repeat a year.