It was one of the largest commercial buildings of the Middle Ages, when it served as the main market and warehouse for the Flemish city's prosperous cloth industry.

In 1999, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Belfries of Belgium and France site, in recognition of their unique architecture, role in the advancement of civil liberties, and their civic, not religious, influence.

The decline of the city in subsequent periods had allowed the saving of most of the original building, very well preserved until the First World War, because it did not require any enlargement or very significant modification thereafter, nor any reconstruction in another style.

[5] After long debates animated by quarrels between amateurs and experts, the architects, including Jules Coomans, opted for a faithful and rigorous restitution of the building based on surveys carried out before and during the war.

The niches on the side wings are now mostly vacant, but those in the centre contain statues of Count Baldwin IX of Flanders and Mary of Champagne, legendary founders of the building; and King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth, under whose reign the reconstruction began.

Today, a jester commemorates this act by tossing stuffed toy felines from the tower during the triennial Cat Parade.

Against the east face of the edifice stands the elegant Nieuwerck, whose Renaissance style contrasts markedly with the Gothic of the main building.

The painting of the Cloth Hall, and seven other of the commissioned pieces, were instead hung in the Senate Chamber of the newly re-built Centre Block of parliament in 1921, and remains there today.