File:Brussels - The Congress Column (4258282028).jpg

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The Congress Column (French: Colonne du Congrès; Dutch: Congreskolom) is a monument situated on the Place du Congrès / Congresplein in Brussels. It commemorates the formation of the Belgian state and constitution by the National Congress in 1830-1831. It was erected on the initiative of Charles Rogier after a design by Joseph Poelaert between 1850 and 1859. It was inspired by Trajan's Column in Rome.

The column, with the statue of king Leopold I of the Belgians surmounting it included, has a total height of 47 meters. A spiral staircase of 193 stairs in the interior of the column leads to a platform surrounding the pedestal of the statue of King Leopold I.

The statue of King Leopold was made by Guillaume Geefs. The important dates in the struggle for Belgian independence are engraved on the pedestal of the column, together with the names of the members of the National Congress of Belgium and the Provisional Government and important passages from the liberal Belgian constitution of 1830.

The four sitting statues surrounding the pedestal represent the major constitutional liberties; the Liberty of Union (Freedom of Association) by Charles Fraikin, the Liberty of Worship (Freedom of Religion) by Eugène Simonis, the Liberty of Press (Freedom of the Press) and the Liberty of Education (Freedom of Education) both by Joseph Geefs. Two monumental bronze Lions by Eugène Simonis are placed in front of the monument.

As a memorial to the Belgian victims of the First World War, five anonymous soldiers were buried on the foot of the monument, the 11th of November 1922. Their tomb is surmounted by an eternal flame.
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Source Brussels - The Congress Column
Author William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland

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This image was originally posted to Flickr by infomatique at https://flickr.com/photos/80824546@N00/4258282028. It was reviewed on 22 February 2022 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.

22 February 2022

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current00:47, 22 February 2022Thumbnail for version as of 00:47, 22 February 20224,224 × 2,376 (5.16 MB)SeichanGant (talk | contribs)Transferred from Flickr via #flickr2commons

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