Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse

The Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse is an 18th-century ''hôtel particulier'' (grand townhouse) in the Belgian city of Ghent. It is located in the ''Veldstraat'' and was once a possession of the D'Hane de Steenhuyse family.

History

The building was built in 1768–1773 by Jan Baptist Simoens, who designed and built the rear facade and the ''salle à l'italienne''. The facade was perhaps designed by David 't Kindt, but archival evidence has not been found. Around the beginning of the 19th century, the building was used for the noble society, culminating in the stay in 1815 of King Louis XVIII while he was expelled from France. With his court he ruled from the hotel in exile. Afterward he gave his host, as a thank you, a porcelain dessert service that is now kept in the ''STAM'' (Ghent City Museum).

In the twentieth century the hotel fell into disuse. The Museum of the Hundred Days was accommodated there in 1949, but without much success.

In 1981, the building came in the possession of the city of Ghent, which first included an information center and later the Monuments Management Service. In the 1990s it underwent a thorough renovation. Public access was, however, very limited. In 2015, the ground floor was opened for commercial activities.

Owners

Three generations of the D'Hane de Steenhuyse family built the hotel:
* Count Emmanuel Ignace d'Hane (1702–1771): main building and facade
* Count Pierre Emmanuel d'Hane de Leeuwergem (1726–1786): extension and garden facade
* Count Jean-Baptiste d'Hane de Steenhuyse (1757–1826): decoration and interior decoration
After the extinction of the male line, the city palace came in the possession of Valerie van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie.

Famous guests

Under Jean-Baptiste the building was visited by various famous European figures:
* 1803: Talleyrand (accompanied first consul Bonaparte during his visit to the former Austrian Netherlands )
* 1811: Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia
* 1814: Alexander I, tsar of Russia
* 1814: John Quincy Adams, one of the guests at a dinner with the English and American delegations who had negotiated the Treaty of Ghent
* 1815: Louis XVIII, the French king who was fleeing from Napoleon during the Hundred Days
* 1815: François René de Châteaubriand, part of the entourage of Louis XVIII
* 1815: the newly crowned King of the Netherlands, William I, and his wife Wilhelmina during their Joyous Entry in Ghent (September 5)
* 1818: Prince William II of the Netherlands

Description

Floor plan

The building was built on the gradually acquired heirs of the older houses which explains the irregular shape of the facade. The goal was to maximize the utilization of the available space, so that the building line was followed. This explains the protruding middle part of the facade.

By integrating the building between existing buildings, the floor plan was also adjusted. Usually, such hotels had a central entrance that provided access to the vestibule. The vestibule was perpendicular to the facade. Left and right of the vestibule were the rooms, symmetrical to each other.

In the case of Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse, the symmetrical floor plan was abandoned. The only access to the building consists of a gateway located at the end of the facade (ie directly next to the adjacent building). This gateway provides access to the arsenal, in the garden, located behind the building. This gateway is connected to the vestibule, which is perpendicular to it (and parallel to the facade).

The rooms were not only accessible separately via the vestibule, they were also connected by the mutual passageways (and thus formed an enfilade). There was also a system of hidden passageways, so that the staff could discreetly enter the rooms.

In addition, the building has a courtyard with terrace. This was laid out in 1773 in pure Louis XVI style.

Facades

The building has two facades. The main facade in Louis XV style is located on the ''Veldstraat''. It contains both baroque and rococo elements. The facade has a protruding middle part with Corinthian half-pilasters and a segment arch pediment.

The rear facade is in neoclassical Louis XVI style. Unlike the front facade, the rear facade has three horizontal sections. The bottom section is conceived as a pedestal. The facade has pilasters and a pediment. It is adjacent to the courtyard.

Rooms

The spaces on the ground floor have a representative function. They consist of salons and halls that are typical of the rich society life of the prosperous social classes at the time. Especially the high ballroom ''à l'italienne'' is richly decorated with ceiling paintings, mirrors, an honorary staircase and a parquet flooring signed by Henri Feylt.

The rooms on the floor were more discreet. One can find the bedrooms of the gentleman and the lady of the house (separated, according to the custom of the times), a library, a room for collections and various other rooms. The cellars were used as service spaces. They are older than the hotel itself. During the construction of the hotel, the vaulted cellars of the houses that used to be there were simply retained and adapted. The staff lived in unheated rooms under the roof.

The rooms were decorated with attention to symmetry and hierarchy. The walls were arranged as symmetrically as possible with wall panels, windows, wallpaper, real and false doors. The wall with the chimney was considered the most important. Each room had its own color scheme. The names of the rooms, such as ''boudoir'', ''cabinet'' and the like, are heavily influenced by the French.

Art objects

The building is decorated with paintings by, among others, Petrus Norbertus van Reysschoot and Peter Paul Rubens as well as copies of works by Jan Brueghel the Elder.

Sources

*Ed Taverne and Irmin Visser (eds.), Stedebouw: ''The history of the city in the Netherlands from 1500 to the present'' (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij SUN), 2004, , pages 144–145
*Dirk Van de Perre and others, ''The architecture of lighting'' (Ghent, 2013)
*B. Baillieul and M. Daem (1985), ''The Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyze in Ghent'', in: Hand. MGOG, vol. XXXIX, pp. 173–201
*Johan Decavele (1984), French fringe to Ghent size. Civil art in Ghent in the 18th century (Ghent: Department of Cultural Affairs), 175 pages.
*The Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse in Ghent. Museum of the Hundred Days. Short guide (1965)
*G. Broget (1990), "About d'Hane Steenhuyse, Louis XVIII and Chateaubriand", in: Ghendtsche Tydinghen, no. XIX, pp. 238–259
*Regal acquisitions, stamgent.be, 24 March 2011 (visited 7 May 2015)
*Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse (ID: 25985), Inventory of the Architectural Heritage
kikirpa.be

External links

{{Coord, 51.05164, 3.72170, format=dms, type:landmark_region:BE, display=title

Buildings and structures in Ghent
Tourist attractions in Ghent
Palaces in Belgium
Content in this edit is translated from the existing Dutch Wikipedia article at :nl:Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse; see its history for attribution.