The abbey church is a Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Mechelen–Brussels and home to a community of Norbertine canons, while other parts of the monastery house the headquarters of the Belgian National Geographic Institute (NGI) and La Cambre, a prestigious visual arts school.

Most of today's buildings date from the 18th century; only the church, the refectory and the wing of the capitular hall maintain their medieval character.

[a] Duke Henry I of Brabant donated the Ixelles Ponds, a water mill, and the monastery's domain, which remained under the spiritual guidance of Villers.

[3][2] The 13th century was a period of great spiritual influence for La Cambre Abbey: Saint Boniface of Brussels (1182–1260), a native of Ixelles, canon of Collegiate Church of St. Michael and St. Gudula (future cathedral of Brussels), who taught theology at the University of Paris and was made bishop of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1231, spent the last eighteen years of his life in the abbey and is interred in the church.

[4] The 14th century was a difficult period for the abbey: located close to the City of Brussels, but outside its walls and therefore unprotected, it often fell victim to looting.

La Cambre Abbey was suppressed during the French Revolution and the monastery was closed in 1796, but it escaped complete dismantling.

[6] After the abbey closed as a monastic community, most of its buildings were demolished; the remaining ones were used successively as a military hospital during the Revolution, a cotton manufacture for five years, and after being purchased by the (then Napoleonic) government in 1810, they became a poor house, where the sick, the infirm, the mentally insane and even delinquents were brought together.

[7][8] Between 1874 and 1908, the Belgian Royal Military Academy occupied the entire site, installing a gymnasium and a games room in the former abbey church.

[17] However, on 1 April 2020, in a joint press release, the Abbot of Leffe and the archdiocese announced the priory's closure by the end of summer.

[18] On the Ixelles Ponds' side, La Cambre Abbey has two entrances, which provide access to the church square, the basin where the Maelbeek stream is born, the terraced gardens, the main courtyard, the abbesses' residence, the abbey church, the cloister, the chapter house, the dormitory, the infirmary and a pavilion.

The cour d'honneur (main courtyard), transformed into a car park, is striking for the symmetry and regularity of the neoclassical buildings that surround it, including the presbytery and the common areas.

The nave is flanked by a rib-vaulted choir dating from 1657 and lit by five windows, as well as two chapels forming an asymmetrical transept with similar vaulting.

On the pavilion's façade, a plaque has been placed in homage to Guillaume Des Marez (1870–1931), one of the leading figures in La Cambre's restoration.

[23] The French formal gardens were created around 1725 by the Abbess Delliano y Velasco, whose coat of arms appears on the wall of the access staircase.