Leopold Quarter

Leopold Park is a major feature of the area, and retains some of its architectural heritage. The Paul-Henri Spaak building of the Espace Léopold, now housing the European Parliament can be seen in the background.

The Leopold Quarter (French: Quartier Léopold, Dutch:  Leopoldswijk (help·info)) is a quarter of Brussels, Belgium. 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, between the Porte de Namur and Porte de Louvain. Today it lies roughly between the ring road and Leopold Park, and Rue Joseph II/Jozef II Straat and Rue du Trone/Troonstraat.^[1] The district was created in 1837, named after King Leopold I, and covers the areas of the municipalities of the City of Brussels, Etterbeek, Ixelles and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode.^[2] The area was initially designed and built soon after Belgian independence in the 1830s and 40s and was a prestigious residential area for the elite of the new Belgian capital.^[3] 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.^[4] 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 (with its building being known as the Espace Léopold) and other European Union offices.^[5] It is also a major financial district of Brussels. The Brussels-Luxembourg Station was formerly known as the Leopold Quarter station before undergoing major rebuilding.^[6]

History

The Place du Luxembourg, with what remains of the old Gare du Quartier Léopold building centre, and the European Parliament behind. Place du Luxembourg retains some of the more traditional architectural elements of the Quartier Leopold, while the parliamentary complex dominates the now largely institutional area.

The area south of the walls of Brussels was largely rural until the 19th century. In the last years of Austrian rule 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 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. In the wake of the Belgian Revolution 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 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 with domestic staff.^[7] Other typical residents included civil servants, military officers, members of liberal professions, embassy staff, and representatives of foreign companies.

A railway station called Gare du Quartier Léopold was built, along with a large square at the end of Rue de Luxembourg, between 1854–55. The station is today known as Brussels-Luxembourg Station, while the square is still known as Luxembourg Square. 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).^[8]

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. 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 horticultural 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 and Paul Héger, professors at the Université Libre de Bruxelles 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.

The population of the area peaked around 1900.^[9] 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.^[10] Slowly at first, companies began to purchase unused mansions and adapt them to their use. Then after the Second World War several Insurance companies and colonial organisations began a trend toward demolishing old buildings and building new modern office blocks.^[11] 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.^[12]

The area is today dominated by medium rise office blocks dating from the last 50 years.

In 1987 the old Leopold brewery was torn down in anticipation of the construction of the Espace Léopold, which was unofficially intended to house the European Parliament. 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) 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 Union
• Leopold Park
• Rue Belliard
• Luxembourg Square
• Jean Rey Square

Notes

Bibliography

Dickinson, Robert Eric. "Brussels." In The West European City; A Geographical Interpretation. Vol 12 ed. London: Routledge & Paul, 1951. 154.

Groof, Roel, and Els Witte. "The Legal Status of Brussels as a European 'Capital'." In Brussels and Europe: [the position of Brussels in the World City Network ; inter actions between the European institutional presence and the Brussels-capial region] ; acta of the International Colloquium on Brussels and Europe, held in the Albert Borschet. Brussel: Academic and Scientific Publ., 2008. 133.

Moulaert, Frank, Arantxa Rodríguez, and Erik Swyngedouw. The globalised city: economic restructuring and social polarisation in European cities. 1. publ. ed. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford University Press, 2003. 129.

Coordinates: 50°50′20″N 4°22′12″E / 50.83889°N 4.37000°E / 50.83889; 4.37000