Hotel Metropole, Brussels

Jardin d’hiver

1890: The Café Metropole was inaugurated to present the beers of the owner family Wielemans to the public.
1895: The Wielemans - Ceuppens family bought the building, a former bank, just next to the Café Metropole and converted it into a hotel. As responsible archtitect Alban Chambon was engaged and supervised all the main works. The main entrance was decorated in French renaissance style, the reception hall in Empire style, and some rooms in Art Deco style.
1995: The hotel celebrated its centenary.
2002, April: The Council of Monuments and Sites of Region of Brussels-Capital gave Metropole Hotel’s facade as well as the ground floor protected status.

Seated (L-R): Walther Nernst, Marcel Brillouin, Ernest Solvay, Hendrik Lorentz, Emil Warburg, Jean Baptiste Perrin, Wilhelm Wien, Marie Curie, and Henri Poincaré.
Standing (L-R): Robert Goldschmidt, Max Planck, Heinrich Rubens, Arnold Sommerfeld, Frederick Lindemann, Maurice de Broglie, Martin Knudsen, Friedrich Hasenöhrl, Georges Hostelet, Edouard Herzen, James Hopwood Jeans, Ernest Rutherford, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Albert Einstein, and Paul Langevin.
Photograph was taken by Benjamin Couprie, 1911