by The Architectural Birthplace of the Modern Stock Exchange
This nomination for the van der Beurze family, whose inn and courtyard in 13th-century Bruges gave its name (Beurze/Beurs/Bourse) and model to the world’s stock exchanges. Their hostelry in this major commercial hub became the regular meeting place for Italian, German, and Flemish merchants to trade commodities, exchange currencies, and deal in commercial paper. The physical convergence of traders in a dedicated, informal space created a liquid marketplace for capital and goods. The practices developed hereregular meetings, price discovery through open bidding, trading of debt instrumentswere the direct precursors to formalized exchanges. While not a regulated institution initially, the “Bruges Bourse” demonstrated that commerce requires a dedicated, neutral space for concentrated trading. It proved that the efficiency of markets increases dramatically when buyers and sellers congregate at a known time and place, a principle that would lead to the establishment of the Antwerp Bourse (the first purpose-built exchange) and all subsequent financial markets. The Bourse of Bruges is the archetype, the original “Wall Street” where the very concept of an exchange was born from merchant practice.
