Due to current developments, the excursion will most likely not take place, but will be offered in the form of a seminar. The unique urban landscape in Flanders and Brabant, which is right on our doorstep and yet – or perhaps precisely because of that? – often lies outside our field of vision, will be the main topic of the seminar.

In the context of the examination of the three major cities – the commercial metropolises of Ghent and Antwerp and the sovereign residence of Brussels – as well as of the episcopal city of Mechelen and the university city of Leuven, we will explore the most important types and individual representatives of bourgeois-citizen profane architecture (including town halls, belfries, cloth halls, residential buildings), sacred buildings (including large late medieval churches, church buildings of counter-reformatory orders, sovereign chapels, pilgrimage churches) and the architecture of the ruling classes between Gothic and Baroque periods (14th to 17th century).

In doing so, we will approach architecture on various levels of scale: on a large scale, we will be interested in the urban development of the five self-confident "urban individuals" against the background of their specific topographical and economic conditions on the one hand and against the background of political developments and confessional conflicts on the threshold from the late Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period on the other hand. In detail, we will focus on the development of architectural styles, starting with Scheldt and Brabant Gothic, continuing with the application of Renaissance forms and ending with the formation of an independent, sometimes surprisingly idiosyncratic Baroque architecture, especially in sacred buildings.

"En passant", of course, we will also take a look at contemporary architecture that has recently been created in these historical contexts (including Stadshal in Ghent, Havenhuis and Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp).