Kapoenstraat 2

Since 2011, various management units of the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences have been housed in the Hustinx mansion. This mansion, which was named after the coffee brewer J. Hustinx, was built in 1882 and consists of several structural elements from various centuries. The oldest date back to the 16th century, with cellars from the late Middle Ages. The building complex is arranged in a square around a courtyard. It has been fundamentally renovated multiple times. In the 1920s, the Hustinx mansion became a tax office. Forty years later, it was converted into offices for the Provincial Executive. When UM moved in, in 1987, the building was fundamentally renovated to make it suitable for instructional purposes. The mansion’s exquisite ‘hall of mirrors’ was restored and its façade was given a yellow shade. During the most recent renovation, in 2008, the faculty found it fitting to retain the ‘home away from home’ concept. In addition to three lecture halls and a large number of study spaces, the building has historic conference rooms, rooftop terraces and a courtyard with a glazed roof which led to the creation of the ‘meeting court’. The building’s attic was also remodelled to serve as a learning area; in doing so, measures were taken to preserve as much of the original 16th-century roof as possible.