Immeuble à appartements Dursin — Anvers

Apartment building in the Art Deco style, designed in 1923 by the architect Alfons Francken according to the façade inscription, for the archaeologist and Africanist Lucien Armand Dursin, a collector of documents on the iconography of Antwerp, who himself occupied a flat there; it belongs to the first generation of blocks of flats in Antwerp. Of two unequal bays and four storeys, designed with a flat roof, it was given a pseudo-mansard over the front block during construction. The cornice façade, in white stone over imitation stone, now painted, on a blue-stone plinth, expresses the plan: the projecting left-hand bay reveals the stair hall through its staggered levels, while the wide windows of the living rooms sit in a segmental-arched surround rising over three storeys. Stylised reliefs by an unknown maker decorate the window breasts and the tympanum, probably depicting, at the client's suggestion, figures from the Antwerp Ommegang such as Neptune on the whale and the caravel. The building is recorded in the Flemish architectural heritage inventory.

Translated from the French original.