Jews settled there until the 14th century, as attested by the old Escaliers des Juifs or Ioode trappen ("Jewish Stairs"), a former series of four steep staircases leading to Brussels' upper town.

[5] The district's development over the next centuries raised one of the most complex questions in the town-planning history of Brussels: the link between the upper and the lower town through the reorganisation of the Montagne de la Cour.

An agreement was finally signed in 1903 between the City of Brussels and the Belgian State for the construction of the Central Station and the creation of the Mont des Arts, at the same time as the complete reorganisation of the old Saint-Roch and Putterie/Putterij districts.

To increase the area's appeal during the Brussels International Exposition of 1910, the king ordered the French landscape architect Pierre Vacherot to design a "temporary" garden on the hill.

Although the garden was conceived as temporary, it became a well-appreciated green area in the heart of the capital, but when the plans for the Mont des Arts came back by the end of the 1930s, it had to be demolished to create a new square as the centre of the urban renewal project.

Between 1956 and 1969, the park and its surroundings gave way to massive, severe geometric structures such as the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) and the Congress Palace (now the Square – Brussels Meeting Centre).

Though the glass and steel cube forming the new entrance to the convention centre has modified the upper part of the complex, the perspective created by Péchère has largely been preserved.