The first botanical garden in Bucharest was founded in 1860 near the Faculty of Medicine by Carol Davila. The decree establishing the Botanical Garden was signed by Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 5 of that year. Its first director was the botanist Ulrich Hoffmann, followed six years later by Dimitrie Grecescu. The garden was eventually moved to its current location in 1884 by Dimitrie Brândză, a Romanian botanist, and Louis Fuchs, a Belgian landscape architect. The gardens were opened in 1891, when the building of the greenhouses finished. The garden was damaged during World War I, when it was used by the German occupation troops, and during World War II, when it was hit by Anglo-American bombardments.