[1][2] The Place des Martyrs is located in the Marais–Jacqmain Quarter, near the Rue Neuve/Nieuwstraat, Belgium's second busiest shopping street.

[1] This hodonym indicates the importance that the city's authorities attached to the operation, which was a first in Brussels, where it marked a radical break, aesthetically, typologically and urbanistically, with traditional practices.

[5] In 1776, the then-director of the Théâtre de la Monnoye, Ignaz Vitzthumb, obtained permission to erect a "portable theatre" on the square; a small wooden building, light and removable, on which he gave plays in Dutch.

According to the historian Guillaume Des Marez, the statue is "undeniably too large in size and harms the primitive design of the work".

[11] In 1839, the addition of two small fenced flowerbeds surrounded by lampposts on both sides of the monument changed the square's appearance once again, as did the installation of fountains in 1841, which were replaced by pools in 1861.

[12] In 1897–98, two smaller monuments were erected there, one in honour of the actor and poet Jenneval,[13] and the other of the Count Frédéric de Mérode.

[15] During the First World War, traditional celebrations were banned, but the population spontaneously gathered on the square to openly protest against the German occupation.

The Place des Martyrs, including the façades and roofs of the buildings, as well as the Pro Patria Monument, received protected status through a royal decree issued on 10 June 1963.

[2] Nowadays, the square is also home to two bookshops, a youth hostel and a five-star hotel in the buildings at the corner of the Rue Saint-Michel.

The layout of the façades is also uniform: the ground floor has partitions, the depth of which is equal to half that of the incisions, which underline the horizontality of the ensemble.