The Kamerlingh Onnes Building is named after the physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes. In 1908 he became the first person in the world to make helium liquid. In his successful experiment he achieved a temperature that was less than one degree away from absolute zero (-273.15 C). In 1913 Kamerlingh Onnes was awarded the Nobel Prize for this research into low temperatures, during which he also discovered superconductivity in 1911.

From the end of the 19th century to the Second World War Leiden University flourished, particularly in the field of physics. In 1902 Hendrik Lorentz and Pieter Zeeman won the Nobel Prize for their research into magnetism and radiation. Also in 1902 Willem Einthoven invented the string galvanometer, with which he was able to make usable ECGs. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1924. No less a person than Albert Einstein became a professor at Leiden in 1920.
He was one of the many foreign scholars who worked in or visited Leiden.

The laboratory building was built between 1856 and 1859. These days it houses the Faculty of Law.