The station was built between 1854 and 1855 by the Grande Compagnie de Luxembourg as part of the Brussels-Luxembourg railway line it was constructing. The station was built to service the new Leopold Quarter, hence its original name of Leopold Quarter station. The lead architect was Gustave Saintenoy. He designed it in a neo-classical style in keeping with the other buildings around Place de Luxembourg which were designed around the same time. The station was Brussels' third, after those built in the Allée Verte and Rue des Bogards. Unlike those two however, Quartier Leopold station was designed as an intermediate stop rather than a terminal. During the 19th century the station was divided into sections to differentiate the three different classes of travel. The station was extended in 1899 and 1921 with single storey pavilions, which were then amalgamated in 1934, when the facade was standardised.
Reconstruction
Prior to its reconstruction in the 1990s and 2000s, the station was ground level with its front building facing the Luxembourg Square. It was redesigned as a subsurface-track station to make way for the European Parliament and a pedestrian link between Luxembourg Square and Leopold Park. The tracks were covered over and moved underground during the 1990s. The station's old building was partly demolished in 2004, with the central entrance building being incorporated into the Parliament's complex as an information office until 2016. Today, the central entrance has been repurposed as "", a welcome point of the European Parliament. There, visitors can find many gadgets, such as an impressive augmented reality model of the campus, offering information on the Parliament, its buildings, its history and the famous personalities who came to visit. The entrance to the station is now a few metres to the south, via stairs descending down from the esplanade or via a ground floor entrance through Parliament's József Antall building on Rue de Trèves. The station, completed in 2009, is now entirely underground, although it has been designed to allow a maximum of natural light in. Stained glass windows from the original structure were incorporated in the new building. It now covers 16,000 square meters and is owned and operated by National Railway Company of Belgium. The same architect consortium responsible for the Parliament, Atelier Espace Léopold, were responsible for the station's redesign.
Future
According to its 2004 planning document, STIB, the Brussels transportation authority, has long term plans to open a Brussels metro stop at the station. There is congestion along the main metro route running through the European quarter, and there are too many transfers being made at Arts-Loi station. To relieve this, a branch would be directed from Merode to Troon, via Brussels-Luxembourg station. There may be a further metro line running south-west from the station to serve Ixelles, Chaussee de Waterloo, and Vanderkindere. In this case, the station would become one of the major transfer points of the Brussels metro system. The plan also hopes to make the railway stations of the city more inter-connected, allowing for easier transfers from Gare du Midi, Schuman station, and Luxembourg.
