A rendered apartment house of 1869 on the corner of the Rue de la Grosse Tour, designed by Émile Janlet and extended by him in 1881, joined today with the house next door to form the Zoom Hotel.
At a glance
Rue de la Concorde 59 stands on the corner with the Rue de la Grosse Tour, a block from the Avenue Louise. The Brussels regional inventory of architectural heritage records it as a neoclassical maison de rapport, a house built to be let in flats, designed in 1869 by the architect Émile Janlet and enlarged by the same architect in 1881 with three more bays along the Rue de la Grosse Tour.
Together with the neighbouring house at number 61 it now forms a hotel, the Zoom Hotel. Both houses have been entered in the region’s legal heritage inventory since 19 August 2024. This page rests mainly on the two inventory notices; see the Sources section.
Key facts
- Where: Rue de la Concorde 59–61, corner of the Rue de la Grosse Tour, 1000 Brussels (south extension of the City of Brussels), Belgium
- Architect: Émile Janlet (1839–1919): no. 59 in 1869, extended in 1881; the neighbouring no. 63 is also his, 1869
- Type: apartment house (maison de rapport) on a corner plot, with the adjoining house at no. 61
- Style: neoclassical
- Later changes: no. 61 raised by two storeys and a row of dormers in 1927 (architect M. Porto); partial mansard on no. 59 in 1993, during the hotel’s renovation
- 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 records: Inventaire du patrimoine architectural, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale, notices 15841 (no. 59) and 15842 (nos. 61, 63)
- Current use: Zoom Hotel
- Coordinates: 50.832454, 4.359737 · open in Google Maps
History
The house stands in the part of the City of Brussels that the inventory calls its south extension, a block from the Avenue Louise. Its building permit, kept in the Brussels City Archives, dates from 1869 and names Émile Janlet as architect; in the same year Janlet also designed the house at number 63, two doors along. In 1881 he returned to number 59 and extended it by three bays along the side street.
Janlet was a Brussels architect of the eclectic generation, a pupil of Henri Beyaert and a member of the fine-arts class of the Royal Academy of Belgium from 1896. His best-known work in the city is the Anspach fountain, an obelisk of pink granite about twenty metres high, designed in 1894 and first erected in 1897 on the Place De Brouckère; the regional inventory notes that it was considered in its time the finest and grandest monument of the city. A modest apartment house like this one shows the other side of such a career: the everyday building that filled the new streets.
Number 61, next door, began as a neoclassical house similar to number 63. In 1927 the architect M. Porto raised it by two storeys and a row of dormers and turned it into an apartment house. The two houses at 59 and 61 were later brought together as a hotel, and a partial mansard storey was added to number 59 in 1993 when the hotel was renovated. The window frames and the door of number 59 have been replaced.
What you see
We have not been able to find a free photograph of this building that we could verify, so this description follows the regional inventory, whose photographs date from 2005. Number 59 has rendered facades of four levels, the second of them a mezzanine storey. The main front, on the Rue de la Concorde, is three bays wide. The ground floor is rusticated, and the upper floors are fronted by continuous balconettes with cast-iron railings. The three bays added in 1881 continue the building along the Rue de la Grosse Tour.
Number 61 was raised by two storeys in 1927 and ends in a row of dormers. Next door, number 63, which the inventory describes as similar to number 61 before it was raised, keeps a symmetrical rendered front with windows under entablatures, a central French window with an iron balcony, its original door and cornice, and a curved shop window of 1919 with the shop door set back.
Practical information
- The building is a working hotel, the Zoom Hotel; the facades can be seen from the Rue de la Concorde and the Rue de la Grosse Tour at any time.
- Look at the three houses from 59 to 63 together: the same street front in its 1869 state, raised in 1927, and turned into a shop in 1919.
Getting there
The Stéphanie tram stop on the Avenue Louise is about 200 metres to the west. The Place Louise is about 500 metres to the north-west on foot.
Nearby
- Hôtel Otlet, Brussels, about 300 metres away.
- Van Rysselberghe House, about 500 metres away.
- Hotel Tassel, about 550 metres away.
Sources
- Inventaire du patrimoine architectural, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale — Rue de la Concorde 59: Émile Janlet, 1869; extension of 1881; description; hotel with no. 61; mansard of 1993 (Brussels City Archives, TP 12059, 9530, 97146); legal inventory since 19 August 2024.
- Inventaire du patrimoine architectural — Rue de la Concorde 61, 63: no. 63 by E. Janlet, 1869; no. 61 raised in 1927 by M. Porto; shop window of 1919 at no. 63.
- Inventaire du patrimoine architectural — Fontaine Anspach: designed by E. Janlet in 1894, erected in 1897 on the Place De Brouckère.
- Wikipedia (fr), Émile Janlet: dates of birth and death, pupil of Henri Beyaert, member of the Royal Academy from 1896.
- Zoom Hotel, the hotel’s own site: address (Rue de la Concorde 59–61) and current use.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim — position of Rue de la Concorde 59.
- Note: the history of the building itself rests on the regional inventory notices; we have not found an independent publication on this house.
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