The Winter Garden dome at the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken

Looking straight up inside the Winter Garden, the great domed hall at the center of Balat's Laeken complex, with tall palms leaning into the frame. The ribs of the dome meet in a ring of small round windows and a lantern at the top, a pattern that reads almost like a rose window in iron. Victor Horta, later the master of Brussels Art Nouveau, trained under Balat, and the swirling geometry here hints at where he learned it.