Municipality House Middelkerke

* Spermaliestraat No. 1 / Oostendelaan. Eclectically styled TOWN HALL from 1924-1925 designed by architect G. Van Damme (Ostend), protected as a monument by M.B. of 10.06.2002. Establishment of the municipal services in the former rectory in 1893. Destruction of the rectory during World War I, reconstruction at approximately the same location. Inauguration plaque (interior): "TOWN HALL BUILT IN 1924 BY THE SERVICE OF THE DEVASTATED REGIONS ON THE SITE OF THE OLD DESTROYED IN THE WAR 1914-1918. THE SERVICE OF THE DEVASTATED REGIONS M.M.D. DE HAENE, ROYAL HIGH COMMISSIONER (…) INAUGURATED, ON JUNE 1, 1925. A. CASTELEYN CONTRACTOR / G. VANDAMME MASTER BUILDER." Double house of five wide bays + two narrow corner bays and two floors on an elevated ground floor; side facades of five bays. High slate gable roof; dormers as oculi and under a tent roof; crowning polygonal bell tower. Yellow brick construction above a granite plinth. Horizontal facade rhythm through continuous drip moldings and lower sills, ceramic frieze with motifs of shellfish and mollusks, and eaves on brackets above a simple main structure. Central round-arched portal on a landing; crowning granite balcony on consoles with the inscription "TOWN HALL" and initials "MI". Round-arched lower windows. Rectangular upper windows with granite transoms; in the corner bay door openings with iron balcony and blind transoms equipped with oculi. Preserved woodwork with small muntin division in the transoms of the upper windows; barred basement windows. Wooden wing door. Simple rear facade with a semi-circular extension at the height of the stairwell; arched wall openings. Interior. Entrance hall of three bays; facing of imitation stone above granite plinth, similarly embedded beams on consoles; round-arched wall openings with elaborately worked keystones; in the side walls, wooden benches set in imposing niches. Stairwell with a staircase with iron balustrade and wooden railing; dome vault with zenithal lighting. On the upper floor, council chamber in neo-Flemish Renaissance cf. wooden paneling and chimney, and cross beams with elaborately worked beam end on stone console (incorporated shield). DEPARTMENT ROHM WEST FLANDERS, Cell Monuments and Landscapes, archive no. 1811. DEVENT G., Sea and Dunes. Coastal tourism in the 19th century, Bruges, 1991, p. 54. HUYGHEBAERT O., BLOES G., Exploring through Middelkerke, n.p., n.d., p. 4-5. VANNESTE A., INGELAERE M., Middelkerke - Its history - Its people - Its traditions - Its church - Its miraculous cross, n.p., 1988, p. 75.

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