Four middle-class houses built side by side between 1866 and about 1870, one of them to designs by Wynand Janssens, then dressed up one by one with bay windows and Beaux-Arts ornament in the 1900s. Since 1987 they have formed a single hotel, the Manos Premier.
At a glance
Numbers 100 to 106 on the Chaussée de Charleroi, in the municipality of Saint-Gilles, are recorded in the Brussels regional inventory of architectural heritage as an ensemble of four neoclassical maisons bourgeoises. Number 100 was built in 1867 to plans by the architect Wynand Janssens, number 102 in 1866, and numbers 104 and 106 around 1870. They have been entered in the region’s legal heritage inventory since 19 August 2024.
What makes the row worth a look is that each house carries a different later layer: a bay window of 1905 on one, a bay by Ernest Acker of 1900 on another, a Beaux-Arts front of 1909 on the last. The inventory says the four were joined in 1987 to form a hotel complex. This page rests mainly on that inventory notice; see the Sources section.
Key facts
- Where: Chaussée de Charleroi 100, 102, 104 and 106, 1060 Saint-Gilles, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
- Dates: no. 102 in 1866; no. 100 in 1867; nos. 104 and 106 around 1870
- Architects: Wynand Janssens (no. 100, 1867); Ernest Acker (bay window of no. 104, 1900); Catherine Myressiotis-Lipszich (alterations of 1975 and 1987)
- Type: row of four middle-class town houses, now one hotel
- Style: neoclassical, with Beaux-Arts decoration added to no. 106 in 1909
- Protection: entered in the legal inventory of the Brussels-Capital Region (inscrit à l’inventaire légal) on 19 August 2024; not a listed monument (classé)
- Inventory record: Inventaire du patrimoine architectural, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale, notice 1797
- Current use: hotel Manos Premier
- Coordinates: 50.828293, 4.355850 · open in Google Maps
History
The four houses went up in quick succession in the late 1860s. The Saint-Gilles building files cited by the inventory give 1866 for number 102 and 1867 for number 100, the latter signed by Wynand Janssens; numbers 104 and 106 followed around 1870.
The same regional inventory records that from 1861 to 1873 he directed the building of the church of Sainte-Catherine, the large church begun by Joseph Poelaert in the lower town. He also trained younger architects, among them Ernest Acker (1852–1912), who would later organise much of the Brussels world exhibition of 1910. It is Acker whose name returns on this row: in 1900 he designed the bay window on number 104.
The houses were updated one at a time. Number 104 received Acker’s bay in 1900; number 102 had small windows cut into its entablature and a bay window spanning two bays added in 1905; number 106 was given its Beaux-Arts decoration in 1909. In 1975 the architect Catherine Myressiotis-Lipszich put a shop window into the ground floor of number 100 and added dormers. In 1987, according to the inventory, the four houses were joined to form a hotel, and the ground floor of number 104 was rebuilt in its original style, losing its carriage door. The hotel itself gives 1975 as its starting date.
What you see
We have not been able to find a free photograph of these houses that we could verify, so this description follows the regional inventory, whose own photograph dates from 2003. At that time the fronts were painted green. Each front is symmetrical, and the four read as a row of related but distinct houses rather than one building.
Number 100 has a ground floor of continuous panels and a slightly projecting central bay, rusticated at the top floor, with balconies on two tall brackets at the first floor and on four small ones at the second. At the second floor the window sills rest on denticulated diamond points. Number 102 has rusticated pilasters beside its ground-floor openings, a bay window of 1905 spanning two bays carrying a balustraded terrace at the third level, and on the right a modern carriage gate in openwork ironwork with a lantern in its transom.
Number 104 is marked by Acker’s central bay window of 1900, which also supports a terrace at the third level. Number 106 is the most ornate: a large door in worked openwork ironwork, garlands under the first-floor windows, baskets of fruit and interlaced motifs over the openings, and a garlanded entablature with a cornice above the French window of the top floor.
Practical information
- The houses are a working hotel, the Manos Premier; the fronts can be seen from the Chaussée de Charleroi at any time.
- Compare the four fronts: together they show how Brussels town houses of the 1860s were updated between 1900 and 1909.
- Several of the best-known Art Nouveau houses in Brussels are a few minutes away on foot (see Nearby).
Getting there
The Chaussée de Charleroi carries trams from the city centre. The Place Stéphanie and the upper end of the Avenue Louise are about 600 metres to the north on foot, and the Grand-Place about two kilometres to the north.
Nearby
- Hankar House (Maison Hankar), Brussels, about 200 metres away.
- Hôtel Ciamberlani, Brussels, about 300 metres away.
- Maison Roosenboom, Brussels, about 300 metres away.
Sources
- Inventaire du patrimoine architectural, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale — Chaussée de Charleroi 100, 102, 104, 106: dates and architects, the alterations of 1900, 1905, 1909, 1975 and 1987, description of the fronts, legal inventory since 19 August 2024. The notice cites the Saint-Gilles communal building files (ACSG/Urb.).
- Inventaire du patrimoine architectural — Église Sainte-Catherine: works directed by W. Janssens from 1861 to 1873.
- Wikipedia (fr), Wynand Janssens and Ernest Acker: Acker as Janssens’s pupil; Acker’s dates and his role at the 1910 exhibition.
- Manos Premier, the hotel’s own site: current use and the hotel’s starting date of 1975.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim — position of Chaussée de Charleroi 102, Saint-Gilles.
- Note: the history of the building itself rests on a single source, the regional inventory notice; we have not found an independent publication on these four houses.
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