The Belgian industrialist Édouard Empain commissioned the palace in Heliopolis, and the French architect Alexandre Marcel designed it. Construction started in 1907, and it was inaugurated in 1911. Georges-Louis Claude built and decorated the interior. It is reinforced concrete on three floors. The article calls the style the Heliopolis style, inspired by Hindu temples, including Angkor Wat and the temples of Orissa. Its ornament includes monkeys, elephants, lions, snakes, and statues of Buddha, Shiva and Krishna.
Empain died in 1929, and the palace was left abandoned after the 1952 coup. The Egyptian government acquired it in 2005, and the Supreme Council of Antiquities classified it as a historical monument in March 2007.
Egypt and Belgium signed an agreement in 2012 to restore it as an international art and cultural center.
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