Raymond Ceurvorst

Raymond Ceurvorst, born in Borgerhout on 12 September 1892 and died in Antwerp on 14 October 1981, was an Antwerp architect whose career began shortly after the First World War. His townhouses of the 1920s combine a conventional façade composition with discreet Art Deco ornament, such as those at Arthur Goemaerelei 81 and Jan Van Rijswijcklaan 135 (1922) or the Van Rompaey house at Jan Van Rijswijcklaan 43 (1926). He also designed the apartment building with a shop at Korte Lozanastraat 10 (1926) and, in 1925, the house at Turnhoutsebaan 259, enlarged in 1931 by John Van Zeeland. In 1927-1928 he converted a mansion on Frankrijklei into a building with twelve apartments and a shop for the engineer Jan Karel Andersen, and in 1927 he designed the apartment building and garage at Karel Oomsstraat 14, where the car-hire business that became Antwerp-Tax was set up in 1929. In 1928 he built two very similar buildings for the brothers Wolf and Max Rabstein, at Marialei 24 and Velodroomstraat 34. From late 1928 to early 1933 he was in partnership with the Dutch architect Cornelius Sol: their main work is the ensemble of shops, offices and housing on the Gemeenteplein in Mortsel, won in a competition, and in Antwerp they designed the Jacobs building at Provinciestraat 11 (1931) as well as the buildings at Van Trierstraat 45 and Prins Boudewijnlaan 34 (1932). Active until the mid-1950s, he moved from Art Deco towards a restrained modernism.

Translated from the French original.