University Hall, Leuven

[1] The building fills most of a city block, with entrances on three of the surrounding streets at Krakenstraat 2, Naamsestraat 22, and Oude Markt 13.

[1] The University of Leuven, founded in December 1425, began to occupy the building in 1431, although initially sharing it with some of the town's guilds and with the city armoury.

On 18 June 1680, work started on an entirely new upper floor, which after completion in 1690 housed teaching spaces and the university library.

[1] A Baroque cartouche was added above the main entrance with the inscription from the Book of Proverbs (9:1), Sapientia aedificavit sibi domum ("Wisdom has built herself a house").

[2] In the night of 25–26 August 1914, invading German forces deliberately set fire to the university library, using petrol and incendiary pastilles.

The destruction of the library shocked the world, with the Daily Chronicle describing it as war not only against civilians but also against "posterity to the utmost generation.

Further minor restoration works were carried out in the 1980s, in part for a papal visit by John Paul II in 1985.