A little north of the royal palace stand the contrasting Chinese Pavilion and the Japanese Tower. The Chinese Pavilion was commissioned by King Leopold II. The halls are designed in Louis XIV-style and Louis-XVI-style and decorated with Chinese motifs, chinaware and silverware. The Japanese Tower is a pagoda, inspired by a construction Leopold saw at the Paris Exposition of 1900. King Leopold II asked its architect Alexandre Marcel to build him a similar one in Laeken.