Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History
The Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History, also known as the Royal Military Museum, is a military museum that occupies the two northernmost halls of the historic complex in the Parc du Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark in Brussels, Belgium. This site is served by Brussels-Schuman railway station, as well as by the metro stations Schuman and Merode on lines 1 and 5.
History
Origins (–1910)
The Parc du Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark was part of a project commissioned by the Belgian Government under the patronage of King Leopold II for the 1880 National Exhibition, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Belgian Revolution. In 1875, the architect Gédéon Bordiau made a proposal to build on this site, part of the so-called "Linthout" plains, the former military exercise ground of the Garde Civique outside of Brussels' city centre. The location was named Cinquantenaire in French and Jubelpark in Dutch because it was planned as an exhibition space to celebrate the anniversary.Temporary structures were erected on the site for the International Exposition of 1897 as Bordiau's work had not been finished. The construction of buildings was put on hold in 1890 for lack of funds and was eventually stopped by the architect's death in 1904. Work resumed the following year under the direction of the French architect Charles Girault and was completed with a new patron, King Leopold II. The triumphal arch that had already been planned was amended and expanded to meet the king's wishes. Five years later, at the Brussels International Exposition of 1910, a section on military history was presented to the public on the same premises, and was met with great success. Given the population's enthusiasm, the authorities decided to create a military museum within the international context of extreme tension that led to the Great War.
Development of the museum
The museum was created by virtue of a royal decree issued on 28 November 1911, and was originally installed on the site of La Cambre Abbey, in the former premises of the Royal Military Academy. Its collections having been considerably enriched, the institution moved in 1923 to the Cinquantenaire Park, where it gradually moved into the various buildings in the northern part of the complex. The new Royal Museum of the Armed Forces was inaugurated by King Albert I on 22 July 1923. It is established in the curved galleries of the northern portion of the hemicycle, as well as in the metallic halls located to the west and south of the interior garden.After the death of Albert I in 1934, the museum also took possession of part of the north pavilion of 1880, where the collection of casts of the future Royal Museums of Art and History had been established since 1886. On 9 April 1935, King Leopold III inaugurated a room there dedicated to his father and World War I. After 1945, the museum appropriated the entire pavilion; a section dedicated to Leopold III and World War II is set up there, inaugurated on 10 May 1955 by King Baudouin. Two years earlier, the institution had taken the official name of the Royal Museum of the Army and Military History.
A fire destroyed the south wing of the complex in 1946, part of the Royal Museums of Art and History. The collection pieces were saved, and the burnt wing has since been rebuilt. As for the north wing, home to the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History, it was spared.
Building
The museum occupies the two northernmost halls of the Cinquantenaire: the northern Bordiau wing and the North Hall. Completed for the 1880 exhibition, like its southern counterpart, destroyed by fire in 1946, the North Hall is the oldest building in the complex. Constructed in stone and metal, it combines classical rigor and industrial innovation in an original way.The building has a rectangular plan, marked at each corner by a projection. Set in a masonry structure, its imposing iron frame forms a single-span structure composed of eight vast arches. These are supported on the side façades by cast iron buttresses with arcades on masonry buttresses. They are composed of two curved beams connected by means of metal parts forming a trellis, a motif that is found in other metal constructions of Bordiau. At the top of the roof is a saddleback skylight of which only the thin vertical walls are glazed.
Collection
The museum's collection originally consisted of approximately 900 pieces collected by the officer Louis Leconte following World War I. Leconte collected considerable equipment abandoned by the Germans in 1918. The collection was later heavily enriched by legacies, gifts and exchanges.Important developments in the 20th century included the opening of three new Departments of Technology, Scientific Documentation and Research in 1976, followed by the armoured vehicle section in 1980, the move of the armours collection from the Halle Gate to the northernmost hall in 1986, and the opening of the naval section in 1996.
Nowadays, the museum displays uniforms, weapons, vehicles and military equipment of all ages and all countries. Since 2004, the European Forum on Contemporary Conflicts has also had its headquarters in the museum.