On the upper-level, open air pedestrian level of Louvain-la-Neuve, the Aula Magna complex is located between the Place Raymond Lemaire (with a main entrance on n°1), the Rue des Frères Lumière, the Traverse Comte Yves du Monceau and Cours Michel Woitrin.

The Aula Magna, built between 1999 and 2001, is part of an ulterior and additional phase with the aim to expand the city in the direction of the Louvain-la-Neuve lake, together with the Resort Urbain Agora complex (2015-2019).

The Aula Magna was inaugurated on 2 May 2001, the year of the 575th anniversary of the University of Louvain, in the presence of the authorities of the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (KU Leuven), invited for the occasion, during a session to present the insignia of Doctor honoris causa of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) to four recipients: the writer of Lebanese origin Amin Maalouf, the German painter and photographer Gerhard Richter, the Spanish musician Jordi Savall and the Czech scenographer Josef Svoboda.

[4] According to the newspaper La Libre at the inauguration in 2001, "this vast glass ship moored at the Louvain-la-Neuve Lake symbolizes the completion of the transfer of the French-speaking part of the university to the Walloon Brabant site".

[1] On 20 November 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel met UCLouvain students at the Aula Magna to discuss the future of Europe.

[8] Students in political science, international relations, public administration and European studies from Saint-Louis University, Brussels, UCLouvain FUCaM Mons, KU Leuven and the Royal Military Academy also participated to the debate.

[11] These frescoes were in the open air when they were created in 2015 but are today confined in the tunnel of Louvain-la-Neuve's Central Ring (Boulevard André Oleffe) following the construction of the Resort Urbain Agora hotel and residential complex.

Awarded a prize in a competition organised in collaboration with the French Community of Belgium, this amphitheatre offers a meeting place for students and passers-by, "inviting them to enter the composition and settle in, to recharge their batteries, on the fringes of the surrounding functional architecture".