In Bruges Part II

Just after arriving in Bruges, our couchsurfing host, Tom, took us on a three-hour tour. [♫A three-hour tour!♫] We crossed and re-crossed the canals that make this picturesque city the "Venice of the North" (along with Strasbourg and Amsterdam, which share that title). Now, the only boats you see are those shuttling tourists around the various sites.

Tom, a history and Dutch teacher, took us to places most tourists don't see and shared wonderfully obscure (but totally relevant) factoids. One of my favorites:

Just above the entrance to the skinniest building in Bruges (left of center) you'll see the following figurines.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but they're stevedores, and they're carrying the building just as they'd normally carry goods from the ships that docked in Bruges' canals when the city was the largest port in the world, in the 15th century. The figurines denote the building's role as headquarters for the stevedores' guild, which was a kind of nascent union/lobbying group looking out for the stevedores' financial interests. Neat, huh?

The only thing Tom couldn't explain was the architectural predilection in Bruges for terraced roof facades. Any ideas?

Thanks, Tom, for the great tour and for your wonderful hospitality!