Location and history of the building

While visiting Brussels, one can notice a contrast between different architectural styles, even when talking about buildings directly adjacent to one another. This is one of the ex-amples of the priorities with regard to architectural heritage and town planning develop-ment applied by the former Belgian governments. This may be seen, for instance, in the destruction of some architectural monuments, created by the founder of the Art Nouveau style Viktor Horta, in the 1970s. Many prominent buildings were in the end classed as his-torically precious and protected by the state in 1994. It is no surprise that the Prague House – the nowadays Delegation of Prague to the EU – is one of the listed buildings.

The Delegation of Prague to the EU, the so called Prague House, is located in the vicinity of the European institutions, between the Marie-Louise and Ambiorix squares. Together with the Avenue Palmerston, they form a park complex interlinked through a system of fountains and small lakes. The Marie-Louise Square was created in 1875 following the plan of development of this area proposed by the architect Gédéon Bordiau and Belgian rich aristocracy used to have the residences in the square. Over the centuries, the system of lakes started slowly diminishing and the lakes were gradually filled in, with only the largest one being preserved, forming the centre of the Marie Louise Square. The entire zone has been classified as a ‘zone d’intérêt culturel, historique et esthétique’. On the upper side of the park, where two main streets cut across it, forming thus a symbolic cross, the town plan included construction of a basilica that would be located right in the middle of Marguerite Square. This idea did not come to fruition and the proposal was altered resulting in the building of the dominate basilica at Koekelberg on the opposite side of Brussels.