Murals of the Walloons on the City Hall of Namur is being renovated

Created between April and August 2004, the mural of the Walloons is a large trompe-l’oeil work decorating the entire gable of the contemporary extension of the town hall of Namur overlooking the “Jardins du Maïeur”. Inspired by a similar famous murals on Place Royale in Quebec City (twinned city with the Walloon capital), the project was born in 2001, both to celebrate Wallonia in the heart of its capital and to decorate this space, recently converted into a garden. The work was inaugurated on the occasion of the Wallonia celebrations on 18 September 2004. Created by the French workshop “CitéCréation” and gathering nearly 250 characters on a 330 m2 space, the monumental mural evokes typical references of both ancient and recent history of Wallonia, historical characters, artists, writers, etc.. One will easily notice both the reproduction of the Walloon rooster of Pierre Paulus and the portrait of François Bovesse at a window, as an example. The mural of the Walloons is today one of the most symbolic witnesses of the history of the area, just like its sisters and models from Quebec and Lyon.
On the occasion of this work, two young painters from the Namur Academy of Fine Arts were trained as muralists.
In 2018, the City of Namur wanted to renovate this mural work which is so much requested by the inhabitants and tourists. The mural painters of CitéCréation are giving him a second youth, they are currently working on the canvases in the studio and will be on site from September.