Hotel Le Plaza, Brussels

Origins and early history Under the reign of King Leopold II, following the covering of the river Senne (1867–1871), Brussels was remodelled with large boulevards and green avenues. The then-mayor of the City of Brussels, Jules Anspach, contributed to the transformation of the urban landscape of the capital through the realisation of thoroughfares from the North Station to the South Station, including routes from south to north and from west to east: the Boulevard Maurice Lemonnier/Maurice Lemonnierlaan, the Boulevard Anspach/Anspachlaan, the Boulevard Adolphe Max/Adolphe Maxlaan, and the Boulevard Émile Jacqmain/Émile Jacqmainlaan. The Hotel Le Plaza opened its doors in 1930 on the Boulevard Adolphe Max. Soon after, guests came to stay there, and it became one of the symbols of Brussels' luxury hotel sector. In 1940, during the German occupation, the hotel was placed under the authority of German troops, and the military commander for Belgium and northern France took up quarters there. Premeditating its destruction, the Hotel Le Plaza was, like the Palace of Justice, made into a booby trap by the Germans before the arrival of the Allied forces. When it exploded, it killed two British Army officers—Captain George Hayton (age 32) and Major Anthony Wright (age 30)—and destroyed the hotel's Winter Garden and stained glass dome. The rest of the hotel was not damaged. During the Belgo-Congolese Round Table Conference, the Hotel Le Plaza served as the headquarters for the Congolese delegates. It was there that they celebrated on 27 January 1960, after receiving assurances of Congolese independence from Belgium on 30 June of that year. On this occasion, the singer Le Grand Kallé and the African Jazz sang and played for the first time their song Indépendance Cha Cha, which immediately became the anthem of the anti-colonial movements throughout Black Africa. File:Hotel Le Plaza, Brussels, 1929.jpg|The main front File:Plaza8web.jpg|The lobby File:Théâtre.jpg|The theatre File:Restaurant Esterel.jpg|The Winter Garden Closure, renovation and reopening The Hotel Le Plaza was obliged, like many of its contemporaries, to close in 1976. Twenty years passed before the rebirth of the Hotel le Plaza under the impulse of its owner, Baron van Gysel de Meise. With a view to restore the building's original purpose, while modernising its amenities, the Société de Gestion Hôtelière undertook, from February 1995, considerable renovation and furnishing works for an investment of 400 million Belgian francs. The restoration works were placed under the direction of the decorator Pierre-Yves Rochon—who was in particular in charge of the decoration of the Hôtel George V in Paris⁠—and of Anne van Gysel. On 23 July 1992, the hotel was listed as a protected monument by the Monuments and Sites Directorate of the Brussels-Capital Region. ==Building==