In 1873, the architect Alphonse Balat designed a greenhouse complex for King Leopold II to complement the classically designed Laeken Castle. The complex has the appearance of a glass city set in a hilly landscape.

The monumental pavilions, the glass domes, the wide galleries that run through the grounds like covered streets, are much more than an anecdote about the architectural applications of iron and glass or about the small greenhouses for exotic plants. What the Royal Greenhouses express is architecture and, more precisely, a great building programme: the "ideal glass palace".

They are the result of numerous discussions, letters, sketches and projects exchanged between the architect Alphonse Balat and King Leopold II. But above all, they inspired the new Belgian architecture of that period and their influence spread, along with Art Nouveau, throughout the world.

The current plant collection of the Royal Greenhouses in Laeken has a triple value:

It still contains some plants from the original plantations of King Leopold II.
The current plantations still correspond, as a whole, to the spirit of the original plantations.
Finally, the Royal Greenhouses still contain many rare and valuable plants.

Every year in spring, the Laeken Greenhouses are open to the public for about three weeks. This century-old tradition is still respected.

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