For the Palace of Justice's construction, a section of the Marolles/Marollen neighbourhood was demolished. Poelaert himself resided in the Marolles, only a few hundred metres from the building, on the /, in a house adjoining his vast offices and workshops and communicating with them. It is thus unlikely he saw himself as ruining the neighbourhood. Nonetheless, many angry citizens personally blamed Poelaert for the forced relocations, and the expression schieven architect (meaning "shameful architect") became one of the most serious insults in the dialect of the Marolles.
