First published: 05/08/14.

Caspar Dechmann 1

Le Palais De Justice De Bruxelles

Le Palais de Justice de Bruxelles (On tentative list)

Le Palais de Justice de Bruxelles by Caspar Dechmann

The Palais de Justice is impressive in many ways. First its pure size. Then its pomp with golden dome with a crown on top. Then the rather odd mix of greek, roman, assyrian and other elements the make a kind of slightly grotesque Piranesian mix. When you enter you see first the huge and tall main hall. If you decide to explore the building further you can get (without ever opening any of the many "no entry" doors) to the strangest places. Long hallways with statues on the side, a huge entrée d'honneur with big stairs and arches that seems unused for decades as dirt, mold and spider webs indicate. Or you can get to an attic, a basement with hardly repaired old pipes. You can find a sphinx looking at you, or broken furniture lying around, even barbed wire barring a neoclassical hallway. And when you think you are in a part that hasn't been used for a long time you find a simple sheet of paper at a door that lists office hours. You can find empty tunnels and winding steps and from time to time you see somebody sitting in an office or hear talk in the hallway. It is a kafkaesque monster, very impressive, often ugly. A dark, deteriorating place, fascinating but certainly not the place where you would trust to be given justice.

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