La Maison de l'Arbre d'Or (third from the right) with the equestrian statue of Charles of Lorraine on top, is the only building on the GrandPlace still to be owned by a guild : the brewers'
There is a small Musée de la Brasserie on the ground floor (daily 10 am-5pm).
Second from the right, the Maison du Cygne takes its name from the swan on the facade. It once housed a bar where Karl Marx regularly met up with Engels during his exile in Belgium. (On a side note, it was in Brussels in 1848 that they wrote the Communist Manifesto, and were deported as political undesirables the following month). Appropriately enough, the Belgian Workers' Party was founded here in 1885.
Today, the building houses one of Brussels' most exclusive restaurants.
First on the right, this arcaded structure known as Maison de l'Etoile was the home of the city magistrate. The building was rebuilt in the nineteenth century.
