Complexe Le Foyer Bourgeois — Anvers

Housing and retail complex in the Art Deco style on the corner of Kammenstraat and Everdijstraat, built by the cooperative society "Le Foyer Bourgeois" on plots whose houses had been destroyed by the German bombardment of October 1914. The first design by the architect Daniël Rosseels, dated 15 June 1921 and still marked by Art Nouveau, was taken over by the Bureau Technique du Bâtiment Teknon, which, then headed by the Ghent engineer-contractor Arthur D'Havé, reworked its façades in October 1922; the permit followed in December 1922 and the complex was built in 1923-1925, probably under the direction of the architect Jean-Laurent Hasse. Laid out in a U around a courtyard, the reinforced-concrete-framed complex originally comprised five shops with dwellings, forty-three rental flats and a caretaker's dwelling. The curved street front, rendered in imitation stone, integrates the shopfronts with mezzanines between concrete piers with Ionic capitals; the colossal upper floors are articulated by three-sided bay windows between pilasters, and the taller corner is crowned by a curved pseudo-pediment. The shopfront joinery and shop interiors largely survive; the housing company De Goede Woning, owner since 1982, renovated the flats in 1985-1986 to a design by the architects Luc Denies and Fr. Ramaekers. The complex is recorded in the Flemish architectural heritage inventory.

Translated from the French original.