Photograph of a view of the ruins of the Cloth Hall, Ypres.

The Cloth Hall, completed in 1304, was one of the largest commercial buildings of the Middle Ages and a major trading centre for the Ypres textile industry. During World War I a series of attacks between 1914 and 1918 led to the near complete destruction of the Cloth Hall. Only a small section of the structure, illustrated in this photograph, remained. The Cloth Hall thus became an iconic image of the destruction of war. In 1933, efforts began to reconstruct the Cloth Hall to its former glory and in 1967, reconstruction was complete.