The history of this site begins back in 1851, when the Royal Society of Zoology bought the estate from the knight Dubois de Blanco (a descendant of the noble Eggevoort family), to which it originally belonged, and converted it into a zoological and horticultural garden for the citizens to enjoy in their leisure time. The large free space was also used for different celebrations for a quarter of a century and it then offered a skating rink, exotic animals, horticultural greenhouses and other attractions. In 1854, the royal architect of Leopold II, Alphonse Balat, designed a small greenhouse to house the Victoria Amazonica, a giant water lily species from Amazonia, but it was subsequently moved from there. Unfortunately, in 1876 the estate went bankrupt due to an epidemic, so it was sold to the City of Brussels. Four years later, in 1880, when the city celebrated its 50th Anniversary of Independence the park was named Leopold Park and it opened for the public. In 1877, the Belgian State acquired the Redemptorists’ convent in the higher parts next to the park and transformed it into a Museum of Natural History installing the collections of natural history there. Between 1887 and 1908, Leopold Park accommodated the greenhouses of the Plantation Service and the assemblies of the Brussels’ botanist and explorer Jean-Jules Linden.
A new era of Leopold Park’s development was inaugurated with the decision to construct a science park on the spot at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century. The undertaking was a joint venture between the city council of Brussels and the Free University of Brussels. The enterprise was sponsored by industrialists and bankers among which there were the names of Ernest and Alfred Solvay, Raoul Warocque and Leon Lambert. The construction of the buildings was entrusted to reputed architects- Jules-Jacques Van Ysendijck, Constant Bosmans and Henri Vandeveld. During this period many science institutions were created such as the Institutes of Sociology (placed in the building of the Solvay library), Physiology, Anatomy, Hygiene, the School of Commerce and several others. The Pasteur Institute was added to the science park in Leopold Park later on. These buildings as well as the Eggevoort tower make the park a place of great architectural interest because it is a kind of unique open-air architectural museum, as the history marks the hilly landscape of the park.
The buildings, although imposing and essential for Brussels’ culture, are just a part of the park’s attractiveness because Leopold park’s natural features are worth the visit as well. Except for the profuse greenery some of which descends from the first ages of the park’s existence and the botanical garden the park has its most valuable tree – the Platane d'Orient. The pond on the park’s premises is one of the six surviving of the Maelbeek source and is a wonderful spot for a relaxing stroll while admiring the water under the shades of the trees that grow on the bank. The shoe-shaped basin has a couple of wooded isles that create further romantic air to the scene. Moreover, Leopold Park has succeeded in preserving a lot of fauna species despite the fact that it is located in the urban heart of Brussels. Those are mostly bird’s species such as mallards and moorheads that one can encounter while walking along the serpentine alleys.