In 1898, the Palace of the Colonies became the Museum of the Congo (, ) and a permanent exhibition was installed. A decade later, in 1912, a small, similar museum—the —was opened in Namur. The museum began to support academic research, but due to the avid collecting of the scientists, the collection soon grew too large for the museum and enlargement was needed. Tervuren, which had become a rich suburb of Brussels, was chosen as the location of the enlarged museum. The new museum started construction in 1904 and was designed by the French architect Charles Girault in neoclassical "palace" architecture, reminiscent of the "Petit Palais" in Paris, with large gardens extending into the Tervuren Forest (a part of the Sonian Forest). It was officially opened by King Albert I in 1910 and named the Museum of the Belgian Congo (, ).