This hall is famous for its magnificent historical machines and equally fantastic lecturers.
Names like 'Professor Coppens', 'Van den Bulck' and 'Theo Van der Waeteren' resound in these halls.
So much so, in fact, that this hall is sometimes also called 'Theo's museum'.
But first let's explore some history.
The Electromechanical Institute opened at KU Leuven at the beginning of the 20th century.
At the time, it was still located in the town centre.
It was part of the Special Schools, in which lie the historical roots of the engineering programme.
The new programme capitalised on the emergence of all kinds of machines
that had become popular thanks to the industrial revolution.
The Special Schools moved to the Arenberg Campus during the interbellum,
and this eventually resulted in the construction of this Thermotechnical Institute.
In 1938, Professor Coppens conducted an experiment.
He had a brick dropped in the exhaust of this Rolls-Royce Derwent jet engine.
This "test" has been conducted every year since;
the brick is dropped into the stream of the jet engine
and propelled outwards – to the great delight of the engineering students.
However, these are not all jet engines.
This steam engine for example, with its gigantic flywheel,
is the only engine of its kind in Belgium that still runs on live steam.