Leuven’s College Laboratories: An Urban Walking Guide Through 600 Years of Science

Throughout its history, Leuven University has housed many famous scientists. The names of cartographer Gerard Mercator, discoverer of gas lighting Jan Pieter Minckelers, chemist Jean-Baptist Van Mons, zoologist Pierre Joseph Van Beneden and inventor of the Big Bang theory Georges Lemaître live on in the local street scene. The laboratories where they worked were housed in university colleges, repeatedly adapted over the centuries to the requirements of scientific research. With the last of these laboratories soon to move out of the inner city to a campus outside the city, this book outlines the urban history of Leuven’s scientists and their laboratories, taking the reader along the still-visible traces of this remarkable heritage.

Leuven’s College Laboratories: An Urban Walking Guide through 600 Years of History focuses on the material heritage of science. The book provides an engaging and accessible introduction to the university’s urban history, appealing to a wide audience of interested parties such as alumni, visitors and tourists.

Geert Vanpaemel is professor emeritus of the history of science at KU Leuven.