The Boerentoren: an Antwerp landmark for the HOC Living community

When you live with HOC Living and choose coliving in Antwerp, you become part of a community that gets to discover the city together. One place you simply cannot miss is the Boerentoren. This iconic art-deco tower on the Schoenmarkt is on the move again. No longer destined to be an office building, it is gradually taking on a new future as a public cultural tower in Antwerp: a place for exhibitions, art, food and drink, and views across the city. For a city that keeps changing without losing sight of its past, that is big news.

This new chapter is still being prepared. The tower has been stripped back to its impressive steel skeleton and was briefly open to visitors. The original, bold proposal for a glass spire attracted plenty of criticism. A revised design by Daniel Libeskind is now on the table: a more restrained crown and a triangular dome, which would bring the tower to a planned height of 103 metres. Planning permission and the detailed design are still in progress, but one thing is already clear: the Boerentoren is becoming a place for the city again, not merely a building to look at.

When the tower was built in the early 1930s, it must have felt almost futuristic to Antwerp residents. At its original height of 87.5 metres and with 25 storeys, it was one of Europe’s very first true skyscrapers – and for a long time the tallest building in Belgium. Only the cathedral remained, quite literally, a head taller.

The tower followed in the wake of the 1930 World Exhibition. Architects Jan Vanhoenacker, Emiel Van Averbeke and Jos Smolderen designed a building that clearly nodded to the American skyline, while giving it a distinctly Antwerp character: clean-lined, vertical and elegantly art deco, clad in pale natural stone.

And the name, Boerentoren – literally “Farmers’ Tower”? It is friendlier than it may sound. The bank that commissioned the tower was closely linked to the Boerenbond, the Flemish farmers’ association, and mainly financed farmers. Officially, the building was first simply called the Torengebouw, and later the KBC Tower. But Antwerp, naturally, chose its nickname. And it stuck.

The Boerentoren originally had a surprisingly mixed use. There were shops and the Torenkelder brasserie at street level, offices above them, and even apartments. One floor housed Cuperus, a tea room designed as a Chinese salon: an exotic little escape without having to pack a coat for a boat trip.

The loveliest detail? As early as 1932, visitors could take the lift to a panorama room high up in the tower. For a modest fee, Antwerp lay at their feet. At its peak, the room reportedly welcomed around 150,000 visitors a year. Today, a rooftop bar hardly raises an eyebrow; back then, it was a small miracle with a lift.

Behind the elegant façade lies an engineering feat: a steel skeleton, thousands of rivets and tonnes of steel. The tower has had its fair share of knocks. During the Second World War it was damaged by shelling and a V1 flying bomb. Fires did not manage to bring it down either. Perhaps that is the Boerentoren’s most Antwerp quality: take a hit, straighten up, and return to the skyline looking perfectly at home.

In the 1970s, the tower underwent a major renovation. It gained an extra wing on the Eiermarkt, the apartments disappeared, and its height grew to around 97 metres. The distinctive KBC crown then became part of Antwerp’s skyline for decades. Since KBC sold the building in 2020 to the Katoen Natie–Indaver group, its next transformation has begun.

The plans are ambitious. The Phoebus Foundation wants to turn the Boerentoren into a home for art and culture, with temporary and permanent exhibitions, a bookshop, museum shop, hospitality venues and publicly accessible spaces. It fits beautifully with what we value at HOC Living: Antwerp is not a backdrop kept neatly behind glass. It is a living city, where heritage, new ideas and people from every corner of the world keep meeting.

For anyone experiencing coliving in Antwerp, the Boerentoren is a wonderful first date with the city. Walk there via the Meir, look up for a moment, and imagine how daring this building once was. Soon, perhaps, it will once again be the sort of place where you meet housemates, new friends or visitors from outside the city – not simply to look at Antwerp, but to be right in the middle of it.

The Boerentoren is more than an old bank and more than a photogenic neighbour of the cathedral. It is a reminder of Antwerp’s bold spirit. And if the current plans take shape, it will soon become an open door to art, views and encounters once more.

Note: The images are the property of the Phoebus Foundation and have been used with permission.