Place de la Bourse
Grand nineteenth-century stock exchange palace with Rodin sculptures, now a beer museum and open pedestrian square.
This guide to Place de la Bourse in Brussels opens two days after the March 2016 bombings, when strangers knelt on these cobblestones writing chalk messages of peace, and follows what happened five days later when far-right demonstrators arrived from Antwerp and clashed with the mourners until riot police moved in. It then steps back to the grand stock exchange building behind the square, raised in the 1860s and 70s over a buried medieval convent, and to the then-unknown sculptor Auguste Rodin, who carved its facade figures of trade, art and victory before anyone had heard his name. Look up at those columns before crossing toward the square's center.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.