Provincial House (Leopold Barracks)

What there is to see

On the corner of the Charles de Kerchovelaan and the Kunstlaan, right across from the Citadelpark, stands the old Leopold Barracks. With its turrets, battlements and heavy buttresses it looks more like a castle than a barracks: red brick, stone and slate roofs with pointed towers. On the corner of the Kunstlaan stands a little castle with round corner turrets.

Since 2024 this has been the Provincial House of East Flanders. The old wings were given a new life, and between the little castle and the barracks came a new wing in grey-green metal and glass. Along the boulevard the building opens onto a courtyard with a raised garden, flags and the big white letters PROVINCIEHUIS. A low white wing with a green roof runs round it.

The rest of the barracks, at the back around the green, became a new neighbourhood with homes. The Provincial House also has a restaurant, Resto Leo.

History

The barracks were built from 1902 to 1906, designed by Modeste de Noyette and Otto Geerling, in an eclectic, romantic style. Oriel turrets, crenellated galleries and buttresses give the complex the look of a fortress. It stood on what was then the Citadellaan, renamed the Charles de Kerchovelaan in 1918 after the mayor who led Ghent for almost 25 years.

Except during the two world wars, the barracks were home to the 2nd Line Regiment, with more than 1,300 soldiers. The regiment left in 1955, and after that the barracks fell largely out of use.

In 2018 the province of East Flanders chose a team of architects, Sergison Bates, 360 architecten and B2Ai, to convert the barracks. In early 2024 some 700 provincial civil servants, who had until then worked spread across the city, moved into the Leopold Barracks, and the provincial council said farewell to the old provincial house on the Gouvernementstraat. The new Provincial House was officially opened in April 2024.