COURT BUILDING

The former palace of Margaret of Austria, which became the Court House in 1796, suggests fairly well its past as a princely residence in 16th century Renaissance Flanders. It was here that Charles V spent the first years of his life. This court of Savoy, commissioned in 1507 by the governess of the Netherlands to the architect Rombaut Keldermans, displays Gothic features in the pre-existing rear building of the Voochtstraat, but the palace with its gallery and its stone framing is very Renaissance.