Archives of the City of Brussels

This page has been automatically translated from French into English by a translation software. Automatic translations are not as accurate as translations made by professional human translators. Nevertheless these pages can help you understand information published by the City of Brussels.

   

The building

The complex of buildings occupied by the Service of the Archives of the City of Brussels increased several times in history. It was led during several decades by the company Jules Waucquez et Compagnie. Since 1901, the company developed one of the most important wholesale trades of textile of the country there.

In 1976, the City of Brussels purchased this interesting example of commercial architecture. The building is today classified, with the aim of installing the archives there.

The installation of the Service of Archives within the Marolles was a means to re-revitalize a district hard tried by degradation.

Archives as a memory of the city

From the Middle Ages, the necessity of keeping the generative documents of rights imposes upon the urban Magistrate even before there was a City Hall.

The archives were kept at first in the church Saint Michel and in the tower of the St. Nicholas church. In the 16th century they went to the City Hall. They moved again to 2 different buildings: Spiegel and Boterpot. These buildings were reduced to ruin during the bombardment of Brussels by the troops of Louis XIV in 1695, so destroying a considerable part of the administrative memory of the city.

In spite of this disaster, the City enriched its collections thanks to a policy of acquisition led since the 19^th century. This was done by the successive professional historians to whom the City entrusted the management and the administration of the archives. Besides the archives of the ancient regime, they also take care of the preservation of archives produced by the various municipal services.

The Service of Archives

The Service of the Archives of the City of Brussels (A.V.B). also keeps all the publications and all the documents. This is done to pass on to the future generations an accurate and complete image of the Brussels life in its most diverse aspects.

It also manages:

• several libraries;
• collections of private, family and professional archives;
• a collection of newspapers and periodicals (3rd most important of Belgium);
• an iconographic collection of more than 35.000 documents (drawings, engravings and photos), an important collection of maps and plans;
• a surprising collection of posters and advertisements
• consultation of inventories via the database Pallas
• the retrocatalogue of the inventories

The wealth and the variety of its capital and collections make the Archives of the City of Brussels one of the main historic centres of the country.