Rural beginnings Originally, Tenbosch was a rural hamlet. The
Ferraris map from the 1770s shows it located in a valley between lower Ixelles to the north and Vleurgat and
La Cambre Abbey to the south. Before urbanisation, this hilly area contained the hamlets of and , with fields, paths, farmsteads, rural houses and country estates. Beyond the / lay the Poortbosch, the old wood of La Cambre Abbey, and the
Sonian Forest. During the late stages of the
Ancien Régime under French control around 1795, the hamlet was incorporated into the newly formed municipality of
Ixelles together with lower Ixelles, upper Ixelles and other hamlets.
19th-century urbanisation The transformation of the area began in 1860 with the construction of the
Avenue Louise/Louizalaan, which cut through the landscape between Tenbosch and Ixelles. Between 1863 and 1866, the road inspector drew up the (), which regulated the development of the residential districts of Tenbosch in 1864 and Berkendaal in 1902. These neighbourhoods occupy a large triangular area bounded by the Avenue Louise, the
Chaussée de Charleroi/Charleroisesteenweg and the
Chaussée de Waterloo/Waterloosesteenweg for Tenbosch, and by the / and the / for Berkendaal. Developing the steep terrain required significant earthworks, often carried out by the landowners themselves, who would then sell the plots or donate street beds to the municipality. The street layout for Tenbosch followed Besme's () of 1864, which combined a grid of square blocks along the / with a fan-shaped design radiating from the /. Work on the roads began in the 1870s, with the felling of the "
sacred tree" in 1870 to make way for the /. Once the infrastructure was completed, the district was built between about 1875 and 1905, entirely through private initiative. From the outset, Besme planned for a
Catholic church in the heart of the neighbourhood. After various proposed sites, the
Holy Trinity Church was built, supported by Baron Victor d'Huart and the developer
Georges Brugmann. Elevated to parish status in 1886, it soon proved too small, and in 1893 the government approved the construction of a new church at the end of the
Rue du Bailli/Baljuwstraat, incorporating the
Baroque façade of the former
Temple of the Augustinians at the
Place de Brouckère/De Brouckèreplein. This was accompanied by an urban plan to extend the Rue du Bailli, create a circular forecourt and add a side street known as the /. The original church was deconsecrated in 1896, transferred to the
Protestant community, and demolished in 1927. Many of Tenbosch's earliest streets and buildings appeared along the Avenue Louise and in adjacent streets such as the /, the Rue de Livourne, the Rue du Bailli and the /. The area initially attracted the affluent
bourgeoisie, who built late
neoclassical and
eclectic town houses with balconies, bay windows and sculpted stone details. Notable
Art Nouveau architects such as
Victor Horta and
Paul Hankar completed major works there, alongside houses by
Ernest Blérot, , and , and
Beaux-Arts residences by
Ernest Jaspar,
Paul Saintenoy, and and . The more distant parts of the district, between the / and the Chaussée de Waterloo, were developed around 1900 with more modest but stylistically similar houses. From the beginning, the neighbourhood also hosted shops and small industries, particularly woodworking, likely due to the proximity of the Sonian Forest, as well as coachbuilding workshops, including the well-known
D'Ieteren Group. ==Sights==