Walter Van Kuyck

Walter Van Kuyck, born in Antwerp on 30 July 1876 and died there on 17 March 1934, was a civil engineer and architect from a family of artists: his grandfather Louis and his father Frans, Antwerp alderman for culture, were painters, and his son Hugo succeeded him as an architect. He trained in architecture at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Antwerp and obtained his engineering degree from Ghent University in 1899; from 1904 he taught at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts and at the industrial school in Antwerp, which he directed from 1921 to 1934. He made his debut in 1901 with the conversion of the "Huwelijksbootje" on Antwerp's Grote Markt, and his pre-1914 work, mainly townhouses, urban villas and country houses, ranges from the cottage style to a moderate Art Nouveau and Beaux-Arts classicism. In 1921 he designed the Koloniale Hogeschool (Colonial University) on Middelheimlaan, in a traditional style with a light cottage influence, inaugurated on 22 November 1923 by King Albert I; after a fire in early 1929, the main building was rebuilt under the direction of the Brussels architects B. Lamote and M. Blondeel, and it was the rebuilt roof storey and new interior that gave it its present Art Deco appearance. In the 1920s he designed both historicising "Old English" cottages and Art Deco townhouses, such as those at Jan Van Rijswijcklaan 27 and Karel Oomsstraat 4 (1928). In 1928-1929 he designed the commercial, office and residential building of the Henri Pirson firm on Huidevettersstraat, with a reinforced-concrete frame and a white stone façade, built by the contractor Victor Merckx-Verellen.

Translated from the French original.