BRUSSELS

Behind the stereotyped image which seeks to reduce it to an Epicurean capital of provincial charm, Brussels is a diverse and paradoxical city. Although Brussels has always been a place of power - a princely residence in the Middle Ages and the unofficial capital of the Spanish Netherlands under Charles V - it had to put up with three centuries of successive domination by Spanish, Austrian, French and Dutch governments before it managed to assert itself as the capital of a nation. Today a fully fledged region within a federal state, it has assumed in addition the role of capital of Europe.

Brussels first achieved an international reputation thanks to its cloth production and the extraordinary skill of its tap-estry-workers, but luxury goods were to remain one of its specialities into the nineteenth century. Throughout its history a number of innovative artists, among them Rogier van der Weyden, Victor Horta and René Magritte, achieved international fame for the city in both the plastic arts and architecture.

Today Brussels is known for its services, as the seat of administrative bodies, and for the congresses which are held there. It has been forgotten that it provided the largest number of industrial jobs in a country in the forefront of the industrial boom on the continent at the turn of the century.

Brussels cityscape reflects the fault lines and the complexity of the capital's history: while the Town Hall recalls the splendour of the medieval textile city, the Grand-Place relates back to the Franco-Spanish wars of the seventeenth century, and the grand lay-outs of the nineteenth century hark back to the industrial and colonial prosperity of Leopold Il's Belgium.

The varied patterns of the city's face, whether open spaces or monuments, placed side by side or forming a dense hotch-potch, make up an ensemble just as complex as the cultural, linguistic and social mosaic formed and reformed as a result of the development of administrative functions and of the urban economy.

Brussels is edited by Claire Billen and Jean-Marie Duvosquel.