Jules Lippens

Jules Lippens, born in Ghent on 22 October 1893 and died there on 14 October 1961, was an architect active mainly in Ghent between the wars. Trained at the academy of his native city (1909-1916), he first worked in a Neo-Gothic style; Art Deco elements entered his work after 1925, followed from 1928 by the influence of the Dutch architect Willem Marinus Dudok, whose idiom he applied consistently in the 1930s. His corner house on Onafhankelijkheidslaan in Ghent (1930) is thus a reduced-scale version of Dudok's pavilion for the Cité universitaire in Paris (1927). In Aalst he designed the Gillade ballroom, then named Folies Bergère, whose plans were approved in March 1924: its symmetrical cement façade, with garlands and geometric motifs, is typical of his early period. In Ghent he designed Art Deco townhouses with rendered façades at Burggravenlaan 247-249 (1925) and 244 (1927), as well as two neighbouring houses at Koning Albertlaan 131-133 (1926); the R. Van Damme house at Congreslaan 19 (1928), also with a rendered façade, retains its interwar interior. He was based at Congreslaan 4 from 1928 to 1961 and was a member of the Société belge des urbanistes et architectes modernistes (SBUAM).

Translated from the French original.