Paleis-Raadhuis: Tilburg’s Royal Palace and Municipal Hall
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.2
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Netherlands
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Dutch
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Town Hall
On this page18 sections
History
Paleis-Raadhuis is a former royal residence and municipal building in Tilburg, Netherlands, commissioned by King William II as a country palace in the Neo-Gothic tradition. William laid its cornerstone on 13 August 1847, but died on 17 March 1849, only 22 days before the building was completed on 7 April. He therefore never lived in the palace, which later became a school and Tilburg’s municipal headquarters.
Royal residence
William II moved his headquarters from Turnhout to Tilburg after the Belgian separation and visited the city frequently. Before he became king, he was known as the Prince of Orange. After succeeding his father on 7 October 1840, he considered his Tilburg residence too modest for his position and ordered a new palace.
The new building rose behind an earlier royal residence, formed from adjoining houses behind Saint Dionysius Church. William had bought those houses from the Frankenhoff family in 1835 and adapted them into a modest palace. The earlier residence was later demolished, leaving the new building in its former backyard.
Tilburg contractor and carpenter Adriaan Goijaerts accepted the building contract on 7 July 1847 for ƒ57,000. He completed the palace on 7 April 1849, although the full sum had not been paid when William died. The royal estate or its administrative commission settled the outstanding debt, which was recorded as paid on 28 October 1850.
Tradition attributes the first sketches to William II, who is said to have drawn on Neo-Gothic buildings he had known in England. Frederik Lodewijk Huijgens, a drawing teacher at the Royal Military Academy in Breda, and Jan C. Boon, the royal master builder, were probably involved in the design. The building was intended as a royal country residence, but its commissioning king never used it as such.
The Koning Willem II school
In 1864, the royal family made the palace available to Tilburg on the condition that it become a state Higher Burgerschool, or HBS. This nineteenth-century type of secular secondary school offered broad practical education for middle-class pupils and prepared them for work in trade, industry, and other professions. The school was named Koning Willem II in memory of the king.
The conversion took place in 1865 and 1866. The school remained in the palace until 1934, when lack of space caused its relocation to a new Tilburg building. It continued there as the Koning Willem II College. During its first 25 years, the school experienced considerable staff turnover and little growth in pupil numbers. Roman Catholic clergy criticized it because it did not provide religious instruction. Electric lighting and central heating were installed in the 1920s, and the old school desks were replaced.
Vincent van Gogh attended the school from 1866 until he left in 1868 for unclear reasons. His teacher was the artist Constant Cornelis Huijsmans, who is said to have influenced Van Gogh’s early drawing style. In 1894 Maria Bes became the school’s first female pupil. She passed her examinations in 1899, studied engineering in Delft, and became one of the first female engineers in the Netherlands.
During the First World War, approximately 200 Belgian soldiers were housed in the palace while teaching continued. The school had to close for several weeks in 1917, but classes otherwise continued in the building during this period.
Municipal headquarters
In 1931, William II’s descendants transferred the palace to the municipality of Tilburg for use as a town hall. This proposed change breached the conditions of the earlier donation, so Queen Wilhelmina approved the conversion. Descendants of William II’s daughter Sophie received ƒ45,000 in compensation.
Between 1934 and 1936, Oscar Leeuw converted the deteriorated former school into a representative municipal building. The Palace-Council House formally opened on 1 August 1936, when Mayor Frans Vonk de Both took it into use. The building housed Tilburg’s municipal archive from 1 October of that year for more than five decades. Under archivist J.A.B.M. de Jong, the archive included a reading room and an archivist’s office. Growing holdings eventually required additional depot space in the adjoining Stadskantoor 1.
The Second World War gave the palace a further military role. The air-raid protection service used its towers as observation posts for detecting aircraft and recording bomb damage. After Tilburg’s liberation on 3 November 1944, the British flag was raised on one of the towers. On the following day, Prince Bernhard and Mayor Jan van de Mortel reviewed the Princess Irene Brigade from the palace steps.
From 1951 to 1960, the Stichting Kunstkring Tilburg used the palace as a museum and displayed paintings in its rooms. By 1967, the building was too small for Tilburg’s expanding municipal administration. Stadskantoor 1 was consequently built beside it, completed in 1971, and connected to the palace by a northern skybridge. The former town hall on the Markt was demolished that year. Paleis-Raadhuis then ceased to be the city administration’s main workplace.
Restoration and later use
After its principal administrative function ended, Paleis-Raadhuis was used chiefly for wedding ceremonies, smaller meetings, lectures, oath-taking ceremonies, seminars, symposia, and receptions for dignitaries. A renovation plan commissioned in 1993 resulted in repairs and, in some areas, reconstruction of the original interior. The Anna Paulowna and Willem II rooms were renovated in the second half of 2012.
A reconstruction of Vincent van Gogh’s drawing classroom was installed in 2009 as part of Stadsmuseum Tilburg’s museum activities. The exhibition moved to another Tilburg location in 2018. Paleis-Raadhuis is protected as a Dutch national monument, or Rijksmonument, under number 35745. This status recognizes its cultural, historical, and architectural importance. The adjoining Stadskantoor 1 underwent extensive stripping, renovation, and reconstruction from 2017 to 2021. Asbestos discoveries and the coronavirus pandemic delayed that work, which materially altered the connected municipal complex.
Remains
Paleis-Raadhuis occupies the former backyard of the earlier royal residence behind Saint Dionysius Church. Its principal arrangement consists of a partly subterranean basement, a bel-etage, or principal reception floor above the basement, and an upper floor. The basement lies approximately 60 percent below ground and 40 percent above it. Four slender corner towers originally contained independent stairwells linking the basement, bel-etage, and second floor.
Exterior and grounds
Palace structure
The palace was built as a royal residence with a reception level above a lower floor. The entrance towers and their pinnacles were removed during the 1934 to 1936 conversion. During the original construction, Goijaerts also raised and terraced the ground behind the palace. That work created the area now known as Stadhuisplein and was listed in the contract at ƒ3,000.
Willemsplein
The former girls’ playground and botanical garden were redesigned in 1936 as Willemsplein. The arrangement included a gently sloping, partly walled U-shaped approach road, a rectangular pond with two simple fountains, flower borders, conifers at the pond’s corners, and a surrounding lawn. Steps led to the main entrance, while low walls with Art Deco lanterns and iron gates defined the approach.
A monument to Archbishop Joannes Zwijsen formerly closed the garden. Its bronze statue, made by Toon Dupuis in 1933, now stands in the garden of Saint Dionysius Church. The approach road, garden, and pond were removed in 1969 and 1970 for a parking area and underground garage. Willemsplein was subsequently raised and given a slight slope. In 1972, a large concrete fountain by Joop Beljon was installed there. The square is also the reported location of William II’s first Tilburg residence.
School alterations and municipal reconstruction
School conversion
The 1865 to 1866 conversion inserted a staircase between the bel-etage and first floor, altered the internal arrangement by removing some walls and adding others, and replaced round first-floor windows with rectangular ones. An attic was created, and a northern auxiliary building provided space for a gymnasium, chemistry classroom, and laboratories. That northern location is now occupied by Stadskantoor 1. In 1895, the attic was converted into a full storey.
Leeuw’s reconstruction
Oscar Leeuw’s 1934 to 1936 reconstruction restored lost crenellations but made the exterior more overtly Gothic by replacing rectangular windows with pointed-arch openings. The former slender entrance turrets were replaced by a central projecting entrance section in Art Deco style. The interior was substantially rebuilt, and the basement received a separate entrance on the east side.
The bel-etage was completely rearranged. The northern wing received the Anna Paulowna-zaal and Willem II-zaal, while the southern wing received the Burgemeesterskamer. Above the eastern basement entrance, a semicircular balcony is paired with a semicircular extension containing a broad marble spiral staircase to the second floor. Stained-glass windows by Joep Nicolas show virtues of administrators through figures from classical antiquity and Christian history, accompanied by three moralizing inscriptions for councillors.
Interior rooms and civic furnishings
Central hall
The central hall and vestibule have dadoes made of Carrara Calacatta marble. Their floor is white marble inlaid with squares of Bleu Turquin marble, and the hall contains metal fittings by Willem Hendrik Gispen. A white Carrara-marble bust of William II by Oswald Wenckebach stands in the hall. Municipal employees presented it when the Palace-Council House opened in 1936.
An Art Deco metal clock designed by Oscar Leeuw stands against the hall wall. Four zodiac signs around its dial represent the constellations in which the sun appears at the beginning of the seasons. The hall also contains the former banner of Tilburg’s Saint Dionysius Kolveniers Guild, a civic shooting guild with social, ceremonial, and armed civic functions. Then Crown Prince William presented the banner to the guild on 14 May 1840. After it became too fragile for continued use, it was lent to the municipality in 1994 and placed in the hall as part of the municipal collection managed by Stadsmuseum Tilburg.
Second-floor rooms
On the second floor, a marble hall leads to the Paleiszaal, formerly the council chamber, the Nassauzaal, formerly the council’s coffee room, and the Oranjezaal, formerly the citizens’ hall. Opposite the staircase, a fresco by Henri Sicking represents culture and economy through three human figures and a banner bearing the words CVLTVRA and OECONOMIA, Latin forms meaning culture and economy.
The Paleiszaal occupies the southern wing and retains an authentic press gallery reached from the south-eastern stair tower. Its stained-glass transoms, made by Toon Berg, contain the arms of the Netherlands, North Brabant, and Tilburg, together with four arms of Tilburg’s rulers. The room also contains a bronze commemorative medal of Mayor Vonk de Both and portraits of Queen Wilhelmina, Princess Juliana, and Queen Beatrix. A painting of William II on his deathbed by Nicaise de Keyser, formerly lent by the Rijksmuseum, has returned to Amsterdam.
The Nassauzaal is a small meeting room in the former council coffee room. It contains a portrait of Princess Beatrix by Theo Swagemakers.
The Oranjezaal occupies the entire northern wing and functions as a wedding room. A small orchestra gallery survives high in its southern wall, while two northern doors lead to the 1971 skybridge to Stadskantoor 1. The room contains portraits of Queen-Regent Emma, Queen Wilhelmina, and William II, stained-glass transoms with medallions by Piet Clijsen, and a wooden inlay panel showing a stylized genealogy of the House of Orange-Nassau. It is the largest wedding room, with 45 seats.
Bel-etage rooms
The Anna Paulowna-zaal occupies the western part of the northern wing on the bel-etage and has 25 seats. It contains portraits of members of the Tilburg Baeten family and can be joined to the Willem II-zaal through two pairs of doors.
The Willem II-zaal lies beside it in the eastern part of the northern wing and has 35 seats. Its portraits include William II by Jan Adam Kruseman, Archbishop Joannes Zwijsen by Jan van Delft, ophthalmologist Franciscus Cornelis Donders, and the Diepen and Van der Voort couple by Basile de Loose. Two pairs of doors connect the room with the Anna Paulowna-zaal.
Van Gogh classroom reconstruction
Drawing classroom
A former aldermen’s room in the southern bel-etage wing contains the reconstructed drawing classroom associated with Vincent van Gogh’s school years. The reconstruction’s original location is uncertain, although the northern wing is considered more likely because it had better light. Access was created through the south-eastern tower, and the basement contains an interactive exhibition on Van Gogh and drawing techniques.
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