Brussels skyline and views - part 2
VIEWS FROM ATOMIUM


Brussels is a mostly flat city, but is also has some hills, the city center actually consist of a lower and an upper town. Around Place Poelaert and Place de l'Albertine you can watch great views of Brussels. Since Brussels is a financially and politically very important city, it has a few tall buildings and skyscrapers, more then the average European city actually. There is a large, growing CBD (Central Business District) just to the North of the city center, the only one in Belgium. Here you will find the Finance Tower (Tour Finances), that is the city's 2nd tallest building in Belgium (145m), but the tallest if you count the mast on top (174m).
But the tallest building in Belgium officially, the 150m tall Tour du Midi, you will find in the Midi district to the soutwest of the city center. Both the tallest buildings are pretty old, but their exteriors have been recladded and modernized. At the river, pretty close to the CBD, you will find Up-site that is about being completed during our visit (2014), a mixed use 42-storey, 142m tall skyscraper. Other notable skyscrapers in the CBD is Dexia Tower, a 37-storey glass skyscraper with diagonal lines, Belcago Towers, 2 glass towers with a skybridge and a mast and some early 1970s buildings like World Trade Center and Manhattan Center. Many of the skyscrapers of Brussels have glass facades. Just southeast of the CBD, you find Madou Plaza, a 34-storey from
2004 and Tour Astro from 1976. You will also find several tall hotels and office buildings spread out over the city.

In the Old Town, the only fairly tall buildings are the Town Hall -that is totally dominating, King's House and the St Michael's Cathedral. In the suburbs you will find Belgium's tallest structure, Sint-Pieters-Lieeuw TV tower (300m), and in the outskirts there are some fairly tall churches, like the Basilica of the Sacred Hearts. The futuristic, 102m tall, Atomium from 1958, is probably Brussels most famous structure on the skyline, but it is located in the far Northern outskirts, so it is not included in any skyline.

The huge EU buildings are rather built on the lenght then height however; for example Espace Léopold, the largest complex consist of 3 rows of buildings, about 400m wide and has about 15 floors, that could be really tall if built on the height.

In this part we show how the skyline looks from the futuristic monument Atomium and from the plane during landing at Brussels Airport.

 

Atomium. Built for the 1958 World Fair. Tubes with elevators inside connect the sphere, where you find exhibtion and during our visit a light/music show, and one vertical elevator that leads to the observation deck, where the views were seen.

 

 

VIEWS FROM THE OBSERVATION DECK OF ATOMIUM:


Atomium's observation deck is situated inside one of the 9 spheres.

 


Atomium


The escalator that leads to the exhibitions

Financial district of Brussels, situated just north of the city center and far south of Atomium. The dominating buildings in the picture are from the left Finance Tower (tallest in Brussels if counting mast), Dexia Tower and Up-site, Belgium's tallest residential highrise to the far right. In the foreground is World Trade Center.

 

 
Centenary Place with and old world exhibtion building from 1958   Exhibtion building with recently added solar panels on the roof   East Brussels

Mini-Europe

 


Mini-Europe
Mini-Europe

 
Mini-Europe   Mini-Europe   Atomium and Mini-Europe

Looking south, towards the city center and CBD. Far away in the middle of the picture, you can see Tour du Midi, Belgium's tallest building.

 


West Brussels
Heysel district and Mini-Europe

 

Sacre-Coeur (Cathedral of Sacred Hearts), and parts of the highrise skyline of West Brussels with the 300m tall Sint-Pieters-Leeuw Tower, Belgium's tallest structure, in the background. The TV tower was built in 1996.

 


Royal Park of Laeken


Royal Park of Laeken

Royal Park of Laeken and West Brussels.

 
Royal Park of Laeken   Commie blocks, Royal Park of Laeken   Towards city center with The Hotel and Palace of Justice

Business district, Park Laeken and a nearby gothic church

 


Skyline, Central business district

Royal Park of Laeken

Heysel district, North Brussels with commie blocks and King Baoudin Stadium, formerly known as Heysel Stadium when a fatal accident occured there in the 1985. Parts of the stadium collapsed and 39 people died after riots between Liverpool and Juventus. But the stadium has been completely rebuilt since then.

 


King Baoudin Stadium is Belgium's national stadium

Royal Park of Laeken

 

 
Royal Park of Laeken   Commie blocks, Royal Park of Laeken   Towards the city center with The Hotel and Palace of Justice

 

Smaller spheres inside a larger spehre!

 


View from the same sphere towards Park Laekn

Spheres and views

 


Spheres and views

Atomium, Business district skyline, Royal Park of Laeken and a nearby neighbourhood.

 

BRUSSELS DURING INFLIGHT:

These pictures were taken a foggy day, during a stopover in Brussels (between Copenhagen and Lisbon).

Brussels Central Business District.

Château du Laeken.

Atomium.

A wealthy villa suburb.

Outskirts of Brussels with its massive railways and highways.