Starting from modest beginnings in a single room in Brussels' Town Hall, it has since 1876 been operating from a former convent and orphanage in the Rue du Midi/Zuidstraat, which was converted by the architect Victor Jamaer [fr].

[1] Historically, artistic training in Brussels was organised in traditional workshops where masters would teach their skills to pupils.

The Bruges painter Bernard Verschoot took over the Academy's leadership and tried to put it back on the rails with a heavy hand.

The Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, put the school under his high protection in 1762.

In addition to painting and sculpture, architectural education became more important, though it never achieved the status of a pioneering teaching and training facility.

[b] In 1876, the Academy moved to the school buildings on the Rue du Midi/Zuidstraat, in what was the former Bogards' convent, which had meanwhile served as an orphanage.

The architect Victor Jamaer [fr] was able to link the whole school in the limited space of the existing ensemble.

[c] At the end of the 19th century, was the founding of the modern LUCA Campus Sint-Lukas Brussels, a strong competition.

In the European art scene around the turn of the century, Brussels drew forth in addition to his training center in the shadow of Paris.

[d] Since 1889, Brussels was the uncrowned capital of Art Nouveau, especially in architecture, which had its triumphal procession through Prof. Victor Horta.

In 1977, the Institute Supérieur d'Architecture Victor Horta, named after the Art Nouveau architect and former director, was founded.

The school is sometimes confused with the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium (RASAB) and the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium, both separate institutions, as well as the French Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, part of the Institut de France.