The Groenplaats covers about a hectare on the south side of the Cathedral of Our Lady, and for most of its life it was not a square at all. From at least the 13th century it was the cathedral’s cemetery, the place for poorer Antwerpenaars who could not pay to be buried inside the church. The cemetery was known as the Groenkerkhof, the green churchyard; after Napoleon fell, the city named the square after it, and a street nearby is still called Groenkerkhofstraat.

From churchyard to Place Bonaparte

The change came from Vienna and then from Paris. In 1784 Emperor Joseph II banned burials inside the city walls. In 1795 the French, who had taken the Austrian Netherlands, claimed the cathedral grounds, and the dispute over the cemetery turned violent: in 1797 the municipal officer François Roché was murdered inside the cathedral. The walls around the church came down in 1799. Work on a Place de l’égalité, Equality Square, began in 1803; houses were demolished and three rows of lime trees planted, and in 1805 the square opened as Place Bonaparte. It kept Napoleon’s name until 1815, when it became the Groenplaats.

Paris had done the same a few years earlier, and less tidily. The Holy Innocents’ Cemetery near Les Halles was closed by edict in September 1780 after years of overcrowding, and in 1786 its remains were dug up and carried to the old quarries that became the Catacombs. The site is now the Place Joachim-du-Bellay, where the Renaissance Fountain of the Innocents still stands. Antwerp’s version got lime trees and, in time, a painter.

A statue that kept falling over

The painter is Peter Paul Rubens, who stands in the middle of the square in bronze by Willem Geefs. The city planned it in 1840 for the 200th anniversary of Rubens’ death, and it went badly from the start. Public fundraising fell short, so Geefs’ studio first made a plaster version, which fell off the cart as it left the studio. A plaster copy was set up on a square by the Scheldt near Het Steen, a square that later disappeared when the river was straightened. When the bronze finally arrived in 1843, the cart’s wheels sank into the Groenplaats and the statue was damaged again. It was repaired and put up the same year. Rubens is shown with a sword, his wide-brimmed hat and a palette at his feet; he lived and worked a short walk away at the Rubenshuis on the Wapper.

The 19th century filled in the edges. From 1819 to 1877 the Court of First Instance sat on the old cathedral grounds to the south. In 1885 the Frenchman Adolphe Kileman opened the Grand Bazar du Bon Marché, a department store, in the building that now holds the Hilton hotel. In 1975 the premetro station opened beneath the square, with an underground car park beside it, and trams turn on a loop around the square. In 2022 the square hosted the official FIBA 3×3 basketball World Cup.

The square that is about to be dug up

The Groenplaats is due for its biggest change since Napoleon. In March 2026 the city approved the mobility plan that goes with the redesign, and work is to start in spring 2027, above and below ground. Underneath, the plan renovates the premetro station and the car park, adds a bicycle store for more than 400 bikes and builds two buffers for rainwater, with a system that feeds water and nutrients to the tree roots. On top, the Dutch engineering firm Witteveen+Bos, which won the city’s design contest in 2020 and works with CROSS Architecture, has drawn 50 new trees, a new spot for the Rubens statue and fountains, and a moved premetro entrance with stairs, escalators and lifts facing Rubens and the cathedral.

The streets around it change too. The Schoenmarkt becomes car-free from facade to facade, though trams and buses still pass, and so does the upper Nationalestraat between the Kammenstraat and the square. Patrick Janssens, the alderman for urban development, promised “more future-proof trees and extra seating on the Groenplaats” and called the pedestrian Schoenmarkt “a clear gain for the city”. Bogdan Vanden Berghe, who leads the Green group on the council, called it “a plan for the car, and sometimes for the pedestrian”.

The order of work is right: bicycles and rainwater underground, trees on top, on a square first laid out in 1803 around three rows of limes. The square of 1975 was built around a premetro station, a car park and a tram loop; the new one puts the trees and the benches back in charge, which is what a square beside a cathedral is for.

Winter in Antwerp

Until the diggers arrive, the square does its busiest work in December. It is one of seven sites of Winter in Antwerp, the city’s Christmas market, along with the Steenplein, the Suikerrui, the Handschoenmarkt, the Hendrik Conscienceplein, the Operaplein and the market square. The 2025 edition drew about 1.5 million visitors in four weeks, some 200,000 more than the year before, VRT reported. The square itself is lined with cafés, and the Meirbrug, one of the streets in the works, leads on to the Meir, the city’s main shopping street.

Rubens, meanwhile, is to move again. Given his record with carts, the contractor may want to take it slowly.