Palais des Académies

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Palais des Académies, on the Rue Ducale in Brussels, was built between 1823 and 1828 to designs by Charles Vander Straeten for Prince William of Orange, with its interior decoration entrusted to Tilman-François Suys. It served as the prince's residence until the Belgian Revolution of September 1830. It was then sequestrated by the Belgian State before being ceded to it in 1842. It subsequently housed a regiment of Chasseurs-Carabiniers (1848–1852) before being converted into a Musée Moderne, with works completed in 1862. A royal decree of 30 April 1876 assigned it to the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts and to the Royal Academy of Medicine, which were joined in the twentieth century by other academies. It also hosted the International Monetary Conference of 1892. A neoclassical building of strict purism, with rigorous symmetry, it contrasts the luxury of its interiors with the austerity of its façades. Its garden notably contains the statue of Quetelet by Fraikin (1880) and a bust of Stas by Vinçotte (1897) on a pedestal by Victor Horta. Listed on 10 October 2001, the palace still houses five of the seven Belgian academies.