Park of the Fiftieth Anniversary in winter

The Parc du Cinquantenaire (Park of the Fiftieth Anniversary) in winter. This is an area that is a little outside the center of Brussels. The arch commemorates 50 years of Belgian independence from the Netherlands. Considering the size of the arch, it must have been a great relieve at the time to be independent, although King Leopold II, who had it built, was prone to grand gestures in architecture anyway.

It is also the place of a three enormous museums: an automobile museum, an army museum, and an art museum. All three have that atmosphere of benign neglect that in the Netherlands would cause the museum to be closed for years, and reopened as an `interactive, modern, accessible’ museum (in other words, a children’s playground). Personally, I prefer the Belgian approach.

See on: Google maps, OpenStreetMap