The town hall

Oudenaarde owes its historical renown largely to its town hall, one of the finest examples of late Brabantine Gothic in Belgium. The building’s great value lies in its extremely pure proportions and unparalleled monumentality.

Oudenaarde’s iconic town hall is just under 500 years old. It is a monument with a delicate beauty that captures hearts. It is charming and rises vividly and gracefully above the city. It is like a shrine in the middle of the market square, surrounded by the hills of the Flemish Ardennes. 

Victor Hugo once wrote: “In this fantastic building, there is not a single detail that is not worth looking at.”

For many inhabitants of Oudenaarde, the town hall is a place of love and sorrow, of celebrations, solemn receptions and weddings. A place one enters at least once in a lifetime. For visitors, it is one of the most beautiful town halls in the country, a pearl of late Gothic architecture, but above all, it is where MOU Museum Oudenaarde is located.

Each of the historic chambers has a different atmosphere; you can see the fault line between old and new and discover a fascinating story. You will find Oudenaarde’s tapestries in the adjacent 14th-century cloth hall; a magnificent collection of precious metalwork under the attic roof; administrative rooms such as the aldermen’s chamber, with its historical and royal portrait gallery; the large reception room or people’s chamber, with its historical murals; the guardians’ chamber with its 18th-century filing cabinets; the weighing room or municipal scales; a chapel housing a restoration workshop; and countless other rooms, each with its own identity.