Immeuble à appartements Art déco, Jan Van Rijswijcklaan 261 — Anvers

Apartment building in a sober Art Deco style, designed in 1931 by the architects Alfred Portielje and Jan De Braey and built on the latter's own account, who then occupied a flat there; the inventory notes some influence of the Amsterdam School, without its typical ornament. With a reinforced-concrete frame, it has two wide bays and six storeys under a flat roof, with a façade of natural stone and yellow Belvédère brick with deep horizontal joints. The asymmetrical composition is accentuated by a three-sided bay window rising over the upper floors; a fluted frieze and the cornice frame the upper storeys, and the attic, with continuous pedestals, has a central loggia with a wrought-iron railing beneath a slate canopy roof. The original steel window frames have been entirely replaced; the oval stairwell houses a four-person lift installed in an open shaft by the lift builder J. Dillen and later adapted by E. Thièry, with its wooden cage and engraved brass control panel. The building is recorded in the Flemish architectural heritage inventory.

Translated from the French original.