33. Wielemans Hotel

In 1925, Adrien Blomme built this mansion at the request of his friend, the brewer Léon Wielemans. This project enabled him to establish himself as the official architect for the family of brewers and entrepreneurs, with projects such as the Métropole cinema, the extension to the Hôtel Métropole and the Wielemans-Ceuppemans brewery buildings, which now house the Wiels Centre for Contemporary Art. The design of the hotel was finalised during a trip to Spain, where the couple, accompanied by the architect, visited Andalusia and its palaces. From this trip, they brought back not only the hotel’s design brief and its distinctive layout centred around a vast internal courtyard, but also the general concept for the interior décor, which primarily combined ceramic tiles and wrought ironwork.