Théâtre des Trois Chênes (ancienne caserne Palavicini) — Le Quesnoy

Built around 1720, the barracks known as Palavicini were finally handed over to the town in 1921. In 1925, at the initiative of the mayor Daniel Vincent, a council resolution sought to use the war-damage compensation to build an Italian-style theatre there, keeping the volume of the barracks; the works, from 1925 to 1928, removed the interior walls, reinforced the exterior walls, created a new façade in the Art Deco style and gave the building a stage, an orchestra pit, a balcony, wings and dressing rooms. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 February 1929. Its rendered-concrete façades, with flat imitation rustication, are articulated by pilasters; the main façade, crowned by a stepped broken pediment, combines a doorway beneath an arch whose tympanum bears the town's arms with a blind bow window. Renovated from 1995 to 1998 by the architects Anne and Jean Dupont-Fauvarque, it owes its name, Théâtre des Trois Chênes, to a consultation of the inhabitants. According to the French heritage inventory, it displays many of the Art Deco features typical of public buildings, in particular references to classical architecture.

Translated from the French original.