# Exterior view [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [ARCHITECT, Flemish]() - Date: 1451-1500 - Technique: Photo ## Commentary In the 16th century Arras was part of the Spanish Netherlands. The large communal building projects of towns in the Netherlands were the "halls" and town halls. The halls had a dual function as warehouses and as meeting rooms for the community. In addition, they were often also town halls in the modern sense, in other words administrative centres. As the expression of civic pride often took the widely visible form of huge towers in the Netherlands, these hall towers acquired more or less the same function as church towers and became more and more like them in appearance. There is no fundamental difference between the cathedral towers of Utrecht or Antwerp and the towers of the Bruges cloth halls or the town halls of Brussels and Arras. The main architectural problem was the same: how to create a harmonic balance between the square base and the octagonal crown. The photo shows the Town Hall in Arras, which was started in the 1450s and completed in the 16th century. The conclusion of the compact octagon is in the form of a stirrup crown. ## Related artworks - [Belfry]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()