Brussels residents have taken to calling the rebuilt Schuman square the biggest frying pan in Europe, a nickname that spread across social media during this summer’s spells of extreme heat.
The square sits between the Berlaymont and Justus Lipsius buildings, the spot where television crews from around the world film the European Union at work. Its redevelopment was meant to turn a traffic-choked roundabout into a pedestrian agora worthy of the EU capital.
The centrepiece was a large planted metal canopy designed by the Brussels firm Brut and the Danish firm Cobe, intended to shade a square built above a railway station, a metro line and a road tunnel. Federal works agency Beliris ruled in August 2025 that it would not pay for the structure, putting the additional cost at €13 million.
The initial budget stood at about €30 million, of which €17.4 million came from the EU’s Covid recovery fund. Brussels ministers asked the European Commission to cover the shortfall, a request Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever urged EU leaders to ignore.
Francis De Wolf, the architect leading the project, told said the outcome was “an uninhabitable place”. He said the square would end up serving as a symbol of failure for the city, the country and, to a degree, Europe.
The cabinet of Brussels mobility minister Elke Van den Brandt said deadlines attached to the recovery money had forced contractors to finish the paving before any decision on the canopy could be taken. Its spokesman said the result did not satisfy the cabinet either and insisted the works were only half done.
Car traffic is now confined to the stretch between Avenue de Cortenbergh and Rue de la Loi, with the rest of the esplanade given over to pedestrians. Mature trees that once ringed the roundabout were cleared during the works.
Vooruit, the Flemish socialist party that launched the scheme under former mobility minister Pascal Smet, has opened a petition demanding the canopy be built. It described the square as a hard open expanse that invites nobody to stop or to meet.
Geoffroy Coomans de Brachène, a Reformist Movement (MR) member of the Brussels parliament, published a rival design on July 27 built around a dry fountain and circular planting. He said he had voted against the “horrible donut”.
The MR politician also proposed a trail of named stars honouring the EU’s founding fathers, modelled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and running through the European Quarter.
The regional government led by Minister-President Boris Dilliès, in office since February after more than 600 days of negotiations, said an “Urban Lab” grouping several Brussels agencies would put an action plan to ministers by the autumn.
