Leopold Quarter
Encyclopedia
Quarter (country subdivision)
A quarter is a section of an urban settlement.Its borders can be administratively chosen , and it may have its own administrative structure...
of Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. Today the term is sometimes confused with European Quarter, as the area has come to be dominated by the institutions of the European Union and organisations dealing with them, although the two terms are not in fact the same, with the Leopold Quarter being a smaller more specific area. The Leopold Quarter was traditionally the area immediately south of the inner ring road
Small ring (Brussels)
The Brussels small ring or inner ring road is a series of roadways in central Brussels, Belgium, surrounding the historic city centre. It was built on the site of the Second walls of Brussels, built in the 16th century, after they were torn down....
, between the Porte de Namur and Porte de Louvain. Today it lies roughly between the ring road and Leopold Park
Leopold Park
Parc Léopold or Leopoldspark is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament....
, and Rue Joseph II/Jozef II Straat and Rue du Trone/Troonstraat. The district was created in 1837, named after King Leopold I
Leopold I of Belgium
Leopold I was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...
, and covers the areas of the municipalities of the City of Brussels
City of Brussels
The City of Brussels is the largest municipality of the Brussels-Capital Region, and the official capital of Belgium by law....
, Etterbeek
Etterbeek
Etterbeek is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. It neighbours the municipalities of the City of Brussels, Ixelles, Auderghem, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and Schaerbeek....
, Ixelles and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Sint-Joost-ten-Node or Saint-Josse-ten-Noode is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium....
. The area was initially designed and built soon after Belgian independence
Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....
in the 1830s and 40s and was a prestigious residential area for the elite of the new Belgian capital. It remained the most prestigious residential address in the capital until the early 20th century when many of its former residents began to relocate to Brussels' newly developing suburbs. Starting at that time, and accelerating rapidly after the 1950s it became primarily a business/institutional area and is today dominated by the institutions of the European Union.
The quarter contains the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
(with its building being known as the Espace Léopold
Espace Léopold
The Espace Léopold or is the complex of parliament buildings in Brussels housing the European Parliament, a legislative chamber of the European Union ....
) and other European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
offices. It is also a major financial district of Brussels. The Brussels-Luxembourg Station
Brussels-Luxembourg Station
Brussels-Luxembourg railway station is a station in the European Quarter of Brussels under the Esplanade of the European Parliament .-History:...
was formerly known as the Leopold Quarter station before undergoing major rebuilding.
History
Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands were a part of the Low Countries controlled by Spain , Austria and annexed by France...
there were plans mooted to build a new residential district outside of the crowded city walls in the area that became the Leopold Quarter. When the walls were torn down in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
a plan was adopted to make the area formerly occupied by the walls into a boulevard, which is today the inner ring road of Brussels
Small ring (Brussels)
The Brussels small ring or inner ring road is a series of roadways in central Brussels, Belgium, surrounding the historic city centre. It was built on the site of the Second walls of Brussels, built in the 16th century, after they were torn down....
. In the wake of the Belgian Revolution
Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....
in 1830, the new members of the Belgian upper class hoped to create a new prestigious residential area in the capital. An official plan for the quarter was drawn up by Tilman-Francois Suys
Tilman-François Suys
Tilman-François Suys or Tieleman Frans Suys , was a Belgian architect who also worked in the Netherlands....
in 1838. The area was designed to emanate from the Brussels Park located behind the palace. The area was laid out on a grid in a traditional classical pattern. The Leopold Quarter was quickly developed and already had 500 residents by 1847. By 1853 the population had reached 3,212, most property owners or landed gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
with domestic staff. Other typical residents included civil servants, military officers, members of liberal professions, embassy staff, and representatives of foreign companies.
A train station, called Gare du Quartier Léopold was built, along with a large square at the end of Rue de Luxembourg from 1854-55. The station is today known as Brussels-Luxembourg Station, while the square is still known as Luxembourg Square
Luxembourg Square
The Place du Luxembourg or Luxemburgplein is a square in the European Quarter of Brussels .-Design:The square consists largely of restaurants and bars which dominate the wide pavements, with some banks and other retail services, serving the employees and members of the neighbouring European...
. They had not been included in Suys' original plans, as the railroad was a new development in the 1830s in Belgium. Designed by Gustave Saintenoy, the station and the railway came to be a defining feature of the area's geography. In those days the outer edge of the area was defined by the Maalbeek river valley, but in the 1850s plans were drawn up to build a bridge across it to connect Rue de la Loi to the new military parade ground on the Linthout Plateau (today Parc du Cinquantenaire).
The Eggevoorde Estate had dominated the Maalbeek Valley since the middle ages, but portions had been sold off in the intervening centuries. In 1851 a portion was sold off in exchange for shares in the Zoological and Horticultural Society, and the area became what is today the Leopold Park
Leopold Park
Parc Léopold or Leopoldspark is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament....
. The park was intended to be a home for scientific and leisure activities. Horticultural gardens and a zoo were created along with a community hall, reading room, and a cafe restaurant. However, the zoo was poorly managed and the as the management company neared bankruptcy it was wound up in 1876. The horticular gardens on the other hand were quite successfully managed by Jean Linden, and they became a commercial and scientific success story until 1898 when it was sold. Brussels bought the old Zoological gardens and it was converted into a public recreational park containing a variety of diversions, including the eventual Natural History Museum. In 1884 Ernest Solvay
Ernest Solvay
Ernest Gaston Joseph Solvay was a Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist.Born at Rebecq, he was prevented by acute pleurisy from going to university...
and Paul Héger, professors at the Université Libre de Bruxelles
Université Libre de Bruxelles
The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...
began a project to create an expanded university campus in the park. Several of the university's new institutes were created in the park, and stand to this day, including the original site of the Solvay Institute of Sociology
Solvay Institute of Sociology
The Solvay Institute of Sociology [SIS; Institut de Sociologie Solvay] assumed its first “definitive form” on November 16, 1902, when its founder Ernest Solvay, a wealthy Belgian chemist, industrialist, and philanthropist, inaugurated the original edifice of SIS in Parc Léopold...
.
The population of the area peaked around 1900. By 1930 the population had declined by 30%. Railway connections and then the rise in car ownership and allowed the wealthy residents to live further from the city in more open suburbs. The increasingly old fashioned mansions in the area, which were generally designed for use by families with the help of domestic servants became increasingly difficult to maintain. Property developers began to build apartments in the area in the 1920s and increasingly in the 1930s beginning a gradual change in its architectural character.
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: Quartier Léopold, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: ) is a quarter
Quarter (country subdivision)
A quarter is a section of an urban settlement.Its borders can be administratively chosen , and it may have its own administrative structure...
of Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. Today the term is sometimes confused with European Quarter, as the area has come to be dominated by the institutions of the European Union and organisations dealing with them, although the two terms are not in fact the same, with the Leopold Quarter being a smaller more specific area. The Leopold Quarter was traditionally the area immediately south of the inner ring road
Small ring (Brussels)
The Brussels small ring or inner ring road is a series of roadways in central Brussels, Belgium, surrounding the historic city centre. It was built on the site of the Second walls of Brussels, built in the 16th century, after they were torn down....
, between the Porte de Namur and Porte de Louvain. Today it lies roughly between the ring road and Leopold Park
Leopold Park
Parc Léopold or Leopoldspark is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament....
, and Rue Joseph II/Jozef II Straat and Rue du Trone/Troonstraat.Demey, 30 The district was created in 1837, named after King Leopold I
Leopold I of Belgium
Leopold I was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...
, and covers the areas of the municipalities of the City of Brussels
City of Brussels
The City of Brussels is the largest municipality of the Brussels-Capital Region, and the official capital of Belgium by law....
, Etterbeek
Etterbeek
Etterbeek is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. It neighbours the municipalities of the City of Brussels, Ixelles, Auderghem, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and Schaerbeek....
, Ixelles and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Sint-Joost-ten-Node or Saint-Josse-ten-Noode is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium....
.The West European City, Google Books The area was initially designed and built soon after Belgian independence
Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....
in the 1830s and 40s and was a prestigious residential area for the elite of the new Belgian capital. The Globalized City, Google Books It remained the most prestigious residential address in the capital until the early 20th century when many of its former residents began to relocate to Brussels' newly developing suburbs. Starting at that time, and accelerating rapidly after the 1950s it became primarily a business/institutional area and is today dominated by the institutions of the European Union.
The quarter contains the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
(with its building being known as the Espace Léopold
Espace Léopold
The Espace Léopold or is the complex of parliament buildings in Brussels housing the European Parliament, a legislative chamber of the European Union ....
) and other European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
offices.Brussels and Europe, Google Books It is also a major financial district of Brussels. The Brussels-Luxembourg Station
Brussels-Luxembourg Station
Brussels-Luxembourg railway station is a station in the European Quarter of Brussels under the Esplanade of the European Parliament .-History:...
was formerly known as the Leopold Quarter station before undergoing major rebuilding.Travel Brussels, Belgium, Google Books
History
Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands were a part of the Low Countries controlled by Spain , Austria and annexed by France...
there were plans mooted to build a new residential district outside of the crowded city walls in the area that became the Leopold Quarter. When the walls were torn down in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
a plan was adopted to make the area formerly occupied by the walls into a boulevard, which is today the inner ring road of Brussels
Small ring (Brussels)
The Brussels small ring or inner ring road is a series of roadways in central Brussels, Belgium, surrounding the historic city centre. It was built on the site of the Second walls of Brussels, built in the 16th century, after they were torn down....
. In the wake of the Belgian Revolution
Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....
in 1830, the new members of the Belgian upper class hoped to create a new prestigious residential area in the capital. An official plan for the quarter was drawn up by Tilman-Francois Suys
Tilman-François Suys
Tilman-François Suys or Tieleman Frans Suys , was a Belgian architect who also worked in the Netherlands....
in 1838. The area was designed to emanate from the Brussels Park located behind the palace. The area was laid out on a grid in a traditional classical pattern. The Leopold Quarter was quickly developed and already had 500 residents by 1847. By 1853 the population had reached 3,212, most property owners or landed gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
with domestic staff. Demey, 43. Other typical residents included civil servants, military officers, members of liberal professions, embassy staff, and representatives of foreign companies.
A train station, called Gare du Quartier Léopold was built, along with a large square at the end of Rue de Luxembourg from 1854-55. The station is today known as Brussels-Luxembourg Station, while the square is still known as Luxembourg Square
Luxembourg Square
The Place du Luxembourg or Luxemburgplein is a square in the European Quarter of Brussels .-Design:The square consists largely of restaurants and bars which dominate the wide pavements, with some banks and other retail services, serving the employees and members of the neighbouring European...
. They had not been included in Suys' original plans, as the railroad was a new development in the 1830s in Belgium. Designed by Gustave Saintenoy, the station and the railway came to be a defining feature of the area's geography. In those days the outer edge of the area was defined by the Maalbeek river valley, but in the 1850s plans were drawn up to build a bridge across it to connect Rue de la Loi to the new military parade ground on the Linthout Plateau (today Parc du Cinquantenaire).Demey, 49.
The Eggevoorde Estate had dominated the Maalbeek Valley since the middle ages, but portions had been sold off in the intervening centuries. In 1851 a portion was sold off in exchange for shares in the Zoological and Horticultural Society, and the area became what is today the Leopold Park
Leopold Park
Parc Léopold or Leopoldspark is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament....
. The park was intended to be a home for scientific and leisure activities. Horticultural gardens and a zoo were created along with a community hall, reading room, and a cafe restaurant. However, the zoo was poorly managed and the as the management company neared bankruptcy it was wound up in 1876. The horticular gardens on the other hand were quite successfully managed by Jean Linden, and they became a commercial and scientific success story until 1898 when it was sold. Brussels bought the old Zoological gardens and it was converted into a public recreational park containing a variety of diversions, including the eventual Natural History Museum. In 1884 Ernest Solvay
Ernest Solvay
Ernest Gaston Joseph Solvay was a Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist.Born at Rebecq, he was prevented by acute pleurisy from going to university...
and Paul Héger, professors at the Université Libre de Bruxelles
Université Libre de Bruxelles
The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...
began a project to create an expanded university campus in the park. Several of the university's new institutes were created in the park, and stand to this day, including the original site of the Solvay Institute of Sociology
Solvay Institute of Sociology
The Solvay Institute of Sociology [SIS; Institut de Sociologie Solvay] assumed its first “definitive form” on November 16, 1902, when its founder Ernest Solvay, a wealthy Belgian chemist, industrialist, and philanthropist, inaugurated the original edifice of SIS in Parc Léopold...
.
The population of the area peaked around 1900.Demey, 72. By 1930 the population had declined by 30%. Railway connections and then the rise in car ownership and allowed the wealthy residents to live further from the city in more open suburbs. The increasingly old fashioned mansions in the area, which were generally designed for use by families with the help of domestic servants became increasingly difficult to maintain. Property developers began to build apartments in the area in the 1920s and increasingly in the 1930s beginning a gradual change in its architectural character.
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: Quartier Léopold, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: ) is a quarter
Quarter (country subdivision)
A quarter is a section of an urban settlement.Its borders can be administratively chosen , and it may have its own administrative structure...
of Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. Today the term is sometimes confused with European Quarter, as the area has come to be dominated by the institutions of the European Union and organisations dealing with them, although the two terms are not in fact the same, with the Leopold Quarter being a smaller more specific area. The Leopold Quarter was traditionally the area immediately south of the inner ring road
Small ring (Brussels)
The Brussels small ring or inner ring road is a series of roadways in central Brussels, Belgium, surrounding the historic city centre. It was built on the site of the Second walls of Brussels, built in the 16th century, after they were torn down....
, between the Porte de Namur and Porte de Louvain. Today it lies roughly between the ring road and Leopold Park
Leopold Park
Parc Léopold or Leopoldspark is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament....
, and Rue Joseph II/Jozef II Straat and Rue du Trone/Troonstraat.Demey, 30 The district was created in 1837, named after King Leopold I
Leopold I of Belgium
Leopold I was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...
, and covers the areas of the municipalities of the City of Brussels
City of Brussels
The City of Brussels is the largest municipality of the Brussels-Capital Region, and the official capital of Belgium by law....
, Etterbeek
Etterbeek
Etterbeek is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. It neighbours the municipalities of the City of Brussels, Ixelles, Auderghem, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and Schaerbeek....
, Ixelles and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Sint-Joost-ten-Node or Saint-Josse-ten-Noode is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium....
.The West European City, Google Books The area was initially designed and built soon after Belgian independence
Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....
in the 1830s and 40s and was a prestigious residential area for the elite of the new Belgian capital. The Globalized City, Google Books It remained the most prestigious residential address in the capital until the early 20th century when many of its former residents began to relocate to Brussels' newly developing suburbs. Starting at that time, and accelerating rapidly after the 1950s it became primarily a business/institutional area and is today dominated by the institutions of the European Union.
The quarter contains the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
(with its building being known as the Espace Léopold
Espace Léopold
The Espace Léopold or is the complex of parliament buildings in Brussels housing the European Parliament, a legislative chamber of the European Union ....
) and other European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
offices.Brussels and Europe, Google Books It is also a major financial district of Brussels. The Brussels-Luxembourg Station
Brussels-Luxembourg Station
Brussels-Luxembourg railway station is a station in the European Quarter of Brussels under the Esplanade of the European Parliament .-History:...
was formerly known as the Leopold Quarter station before undergoing major rebuilding.Travel Brussels, Belgium, Google Books
History
Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands were a part of the Low Countries controlled by Spain , Austria and annexed by France...
there were plans mooted to build a new residential district outside of the crowded city walls in the area that became the Leopold Quarter. When the walls were torn down in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
a plan was adopted to make the area formerly occupied by the walls into a boulevard, which is today the inner ring road of Brussels
Small ring (Brussels)
The Brussels small ring or inner ring road is a series of roadways in central Brussels, Belgium, surrounding the historic city centre. It was built on the site of the Second walls of Brussels, built in the 16th century, after they were torn down....
. In the wake of the Belgian Revolution
Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....
in 1830, the new members of the Belgian upper class hoped to create a new prestigious residential area in the capital. An official plan for the quarter was drawn up by Tilman-Francois Suys
Tilman-François Suys
Tilman-François Suys or Tieleman Frans Suys , was a Belgian architect who also worked in the Netherlands....
in 1838. The area was designed to emanate from the Brussels Park located behind the palace. The area was laid out on a grid in a traditional classical pattern. The Leopold Quarter was quickly developed and already had 500 residents by 1847. By 1853 the population had reached 3,212, most property owners or landed gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
with domestic staff. Demey, 43. Other typical residents included civil servants, military officers, members of liberal professions, embassy staff, and representatives of foreign companies.
A train station, called Gare du Quartier Léopold was built, along with a large square at the end of Rue de Luxembourg from 1854-55. The station is today known as Brussels-Luxembourg Station, while the square is still known as Luxembourg Square
Luxembourg Square
The Place du Luxembourg or Luxemburgplein is a square in the European Quarter of Brussels .-Design:The square consists largely of restaurants and bars which dominate the wide pavements, with some banks and other retail services, serving the employees and members of the neighbouring European...
. They had not been included in Suys' original plans, as the railroad was a new development in the 1830s in Belgium. Designed by Gustave Saintenoy, the station and the railway came to be a defining feature of the area's geography. In those days the outer edge of the area was defined by the Maalbeek river valley, but in the 1850s plans were drawn up to build a bridge across it to connect Rue de la Loi to the new military parade ground on the Linthout Plateau (today Parc du Cinquantenaire).Demey, 49.
The Eggevoorde Estate had dominated the Maalbeek Valley since the middle ages, but portions had been sold off in the intervening centuries. In 1851 a portion was sold off in exchange for shares in the Zoological and Horticultural Society, and the area became what is today the Leopold Park
Leopold Park
Parc Léopold or Leopoldspark is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament....
. The park was intended to be a home for scientific and leisure activities. Horticultural gardens and a zoo were created along with a community hall, reading room, and a cafe restaurant. However, the zoo was poorly managed and the as the management company neared bankruptcy it was wound up in 1876. The horticular gardens on the other hand were quite successfully managed by Jean Linden, and they became a commercial and scientific success story until 1898 when it was sold. Brussels bought the old Zoological gardens and it was converted into a public recreational park containing a variety of diversions, including the eventual Natural History Museum. In 1884 Ernest Solvay
Ernest Solvay
Ernest Gaston Joseph Solvay was a Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist.Born at Rebecq, he was prevented by acute pleurisy from going to university...
and Paul Héger, professors at the Université Libre de Bruxelles
Université Libre de Bruxelles
The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...
began a project to create an expanded university campus in the park. Several of the university's new institutes were created in the park, and stand to this day, including the original site of the Solvay Institute of Sociology
Solvay Institute of Sociology
The Solvay Institute of Sociology [SIS; Institut de Sociologie Solvay] assumed its first “definitive form” on November 16, 1902, when its founder Ernest Solvay, a wealthy Belgian chemist, industrialist, and philanthropist, inaugurated the original edifice of SIS in Parc Léopold...
.
The population of the area peaked around 1900.Demey, 72. By 1930 the population had declined by 30%. Railway connections and then the rise in car ownership and allowed the wealthy residents to live further from the city in more open suburbs. The increasingly old fashioned mansions in the area, which were generally designed for use by families with the help of domestic servants became increasingly difficult to maintain. Property developers began to build apartments in the area in the 1920s and increasingly in the 1930s beginning a gradual change in its architectural character. Demey, 428. Slowly at first, companies began to purchase unused mansions and adapt them to their use. Then sfter the Second World War several Insurance companies and colonial organisations began a trend toward demolishing old buildings and building new modern office blocks. Demey, 74. With changes to the road infrastructure of the inner ring road for the 1958 World's Fair the area became even more attractive to companies, located between the administrative centre of Brussels and the residential suburbs further out. With the growing economy, and then the arrival of the European Institutions in the late 1950s, the area became a major target for property developers building office space for institutional and corporate use. Brussels had no development plan, and did not enforce existing legal restrictions, so most remaining residents left during this time as it had become completely transformed from a formerly quiet residential area into a busy centre of transport and business.Demey, 75.
Espace Léopold
The Espace Léopold or is the complex of parliament buildings in Brussels housing the European Parliament, a legislative chamber of the European Union ....
, which was unofficially intended to house the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
. Political and legal wrangling had continually delayed a final conclusion regarding the unofficial seat for the parliament. However, as Brussels hoped to keep all of the official institutions in Europe, provision was made for the construction of a suitable facility. (See : Brussels and the European Union
Brussels and the European Union
Brussels is considered to be the de facto capital of the European Union, having a long history of hosting the institutions of the European Union within its European Quarter...
) The construction of the massive facility changed the face of the area again, replacing the above ground tracks and the Gare du Quartier Leopold, and sending them below ground and renamed as the Brussels-Luxembourg train station.
See also
- Brussels and the European UnionBrussels and the European UnionBrussels is considered to be the de facto capital of the European Union, having a long history of hosting the institutions of the European Union within its European Quarter...
- Leopold ParkLeopold ParkParc Léopold or Leopoldspark is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament....
- Rue BelliardRue BelliardRue Belliard or Belliardstraat is a major street in Brussels, Belgium. The street runs parallel to the Rue de la Loi. Both are one-way streets; where traffic in Rue de la Loi is running in the western direction towards the Brussels city centre, the Rue Belliard is running in the eastern...
- Luxembourg SquareLuxembourg SquareThe Place du Luxembourg or Luxemburgplein is a square in the European Quarter of Brussels .-Design:The square consists largely of restaurants and bars which dominate the wide pavements, with some banks and other retail services, serving the employees and members of the neighbouring European...
- Jean Rey SquareJean Rey SquareJean Rey Square is a square in the European Quarter of Brussels inaugurated in 2001.-Design and location:...