On the occasion of a restoration project led by the Carbone 14 architecture office, a public procurement for archaeological documentation was organised by the Department of Monuments and Sites of the Ministry of the Brussels Capital Region on the building located at 11 rue du Marché-aux-Fromages in the centre of Brussels. The intervention was carried out from December 2012 to mid-February 2013 by Sylvie Byl and Céline Devillers.
The building is part of a group of traditional houses classified for their aesthetic and historical interest. Presenting the Brussels model plan "front house - courtyard - rear house", it was dated in literature according to the style of its street façade from the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century. It is located in the Grand-Place district, the city's heart centre since the 12th century. The main target of the bombing ordered by Louis XIV in 1695, this district is generally considered to have been largely rebuilt in the first half of the 18th century.
The current state of the building is the result of different phases of construction and modification and its interweaving with the complex urban fabric. Some can be located chronologically during the 18th and 19th centuries thanks to the archives, while others have been detected but cannot be precisely dated. However, most of them must go back to the period of the reconstruction of Brussels after the great bombardment of 1695.
Fig. 1. Facade of no 11 rue du Marché-aux-Fromages.
Fig. 2. General view of the eastern elevation of the annex (post 1695).