Presbytère du Christ-Roi — Anvers

Presbytery built for the church council of Christ the King to a 1932 design by the architect Jos Smolderen, chief architect of the 1930 World Exhibition, and linked by a pergola to the sacristy of the church. This massive three-storey block in red-brown Boom brick, under a tall slate hipped roof, translates a classical vocabulary according to contemporary ideas, with influences from the New Objectivity and Art Deco. The three-sided oriels, the door and window surrounds and the crowning of the dormers in bluestone are Art Deco-inspired, while the attic storey under a broad gutter cornice recalls, according to the inventory, Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School, introduced in this country through the Dutch architect Dudok. Inside, polychrome cement-tile floors with geometric patterns survive, as do stained-glass medallions in the ground-floor windows designed by Arthur Van Gramberen and made by the glazier Frans Calders.

Translated from the French original.