Jan Van Hoenacker

Born in Kortrijk in 1875 and died in Antwerp in 1958, Jan Van Hoenacker trained at the Kortrijk academy and then at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp; he won second prize in the Prix de Rome for architecture twice (1899, 1902). Before 1914 he built mainly in West Flanders (a bank, a theatre and villas). From 1920 to 1931 he ran an architectural practice in Antwerp with Jos Smolderen and John Van Beurden, working on post-war reconstruction and then on office and hotel buildings. His works include the Century Hotel and the Diamond Exchange in Antwerp, and the Boerentoren (1929-1932), designed with Smolderen and Emiel Van Averbeke, which remains his best-known work and a milestone of the Art Deco skyscraper in Europe.

Translated from the French original.