Immeuble Demaerel, Korte Gasthuisstraat 1 — Anvers

Apartment building in the Art Deco style on the corner of Korte Gasthuisstraat and Groendalstraat, built after a 1935 design by the architects Karel Van Riel and Maurice Janssens for the clerk Georges Demaerel; it contains a shop and five modestly sized flats, one per floor. Six storeys high under a flat roof on a reinforced-concrete structure, it owes its dynamic massing to the streamlined curve of the corner, the cantilevered upper floors and the interplay of projecting and recessed planes. The three-bay façade combines red brick and white stone; the emphasis lies on the raised corner, whose axis is marked by semicircular grooved parapets. The inventory calls the discreet Art Deco ornament typical of Van Riel and Janssens, here limited to chevrons in the mouldings and a dentil course under the broken cornice; the shopfront is clad in cream marble, the private entrance door and cellar grille in wrought iron are by the F. Leliaerts & Zoon workshop, and a white-stone Madonna and Child, probably from the time of construction, stands against the side elevation. It is recorded in the Flemish architectural heritage inventory.

Translated from the French original.