Maisons jumelles Van Butsel, Boekenberglei 126-128 — Anvers

Mirror-image group of two semi-detached town houses in the Art Deco style, built in 1928 for the clerk Gerard Van Butsel to designs by the architect Alphonse Pauwels; it is one of his last private designs and among the first buildings on Boekenberglei. Of three storeys under a flat roof on the street side, they have rendered imitation-stone cornice façades on a high blue-stone plinth, with accents of red-brown brick, and floral and geometric Art Deco decoration: stylised festoons and tendrils at the corners, a foliated scroll on the bay-window breast, sawtooth ornament and a circular meander as architrave. The wide bay, framed by pilaster strips, carries a semicircular bay window on the first floor; the side façade centres on a three-sided bay window crowned by a balcony with a geometric wrought-iron balustrade. The joinery has been entirely renewed, at no. 126 to the historical model; no. 128 was raised at the rear in 1961 and converted into offices and then a social centre. The houses are recorded in the Flemish architectural heritage inventory.

Translated from the French original.