Arenberg Castle ( nl, Kasteel van Arenberg, french: Château d'Arenberg) is a

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Now ...

Heverlee Heverlee () is a town in Belgium. It is a borough of the city of Leuven. Heverlee is bordered by Herent, Bertem, Oud Heverlee and several other municipalities that are part of Leuven (including Leuven proper and Kessel-Lo). The town is the loca ...

close to Leuven in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. It is surrounded by a park.

History

The site had been the castle of the lords of

since the 12th century, but this family became impoverished and had to sell the site in 1445 to the Croÿ family from Picardy.

Antoine I de Croÿ Antoine I de Croÿ (''the Great'' or ''Le Grand de Croÿ''), Seigneur de Croÿ, Renty and Le Roeulx, Count of Porcéan (c. 1383/1387 – 21 September 1475), was a member of the House of Croÿ. Antoine was the eldest surviving son and heir of J ...

demolished the medieval castle and started works to build the current château in 1455 on the site, of which he destroyed all but one tower. His grandson,

William de Croÿ William II de Croÿ, Lord of Chièvres (1458 – 28 May 1521) (also known as: Guillaume II de Croÿ, sieur de Chièvres in French; Guillermo II de Croÿ, señor de Chièvres, Xevres or Xebres in Spanish; Willem II van Croÿ, heer van Chi� ...

, completed the works on the château in 1515, and founded a monastery on the château grounds for the

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

Celestines The Celestines were a Roman Catholic monastic order, a branch of the Benedictines, founded in 1244. At the foundation of the new rule, they were called Hermits of St Damiano, or Moronites (or Murronites), and did not assume the appellation of Ce ...

. The architectural style is in large part traditionally Flemish, with sandstone window frames and brick walls, though it has been structurally altered since 1515 and has elements of Gothic,

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

, and

Neo Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

architecture. Its large corner towers are typical, once surmounted by a German eagle. Charles III of Croy was the 4th and last duke, and after his death in 1612 without issue the château passed to the Arenberg family into which his sister had married, and remained in that family until the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Even before the First World War, the 8th duke of Arenberg wanted to sell the château and its grounds to the Catholic University of Leuven, for a reasonable price. During the

, the château and grounds were occupied by the Germans and Austrians. The château and park were seized by the Belgian government on the outbreak of, and then after the war since the Arenberg family was considered to be German or Austrian due to their close Habsburg connection, monarchs of Austria-Hungary. It took until 1921 for the University to acquire them, becoming an expanded natural sciences and engineering campus in the style of that of an American university. After the partitioning of the university along language lines in 1968, the château and grounds remained with the Dutch speaking half as one of the main campuses for the new, independent Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The château itself is the main building of the Faculty of Engineering and houses lecture rooms and studios for the Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Urban Planning, including the Post-Graduate Centre Human Settlements and the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (named after Raymond M. Lemaire). The building is open to the public. The former Celestine monastery on the château grounds now houses the campus library, and the addresses of many of the science buildings are on the street named ''Celestijnenlaan'' (Dutch for "Celestine Street").

References

External links

Local tourism information
{{Castles in Belgium

Arenberg Arenberg, also spelled as Aremberg or Ahremberg, is a former county, principality and finally duchy that was located in what is now Germany. The Dukes of Arenberg remain a prominent Belgian noble family. History First mentioned in the 12 ...

Buildings and structures in Leuven

History

See also

References

External links