Private home Gaston Eysselinck

Former residence of architect G. Eysselinck designed in 1930-31 in purely functional style, one of the best examples of the international style movement. Built in the period of its so-called "white dwellings" influenced by the French architect Le Corbusier. Popularly called "white block, bunker or house with the outside staircase or with the tree". Corner building with the Fleurusstraat, in stark contrast to the eclectic bourgeois houses and villas in the district, so-called "Miljoenenkwartier" and in its time provoking strong reactions. However, the current building is only a compromise in response to a series of imposed building obligations, after eleven submitted and rejected designs. Unusual ground plan, determined by the irregular shape of the building plot (triangular) and the urban planning regulations: only one house (first design for two houses), minimum height 10.50 meters, thickness of the brick walls 0.40 meters, mandatory front garden and same building line, solved by a kind of tower. As a result, it was technically not as progressive as Eysselinck had liked, but fully corresponds to his preconceived strictly functional principles, namely a house as a living machine with various well-defined functions. Here we have a threefold layout: working on the ground floor, living on the second floor and sleeping and resting on the third floor, finally a flat roof with roof garden and solarium. An external staircase to the living floor clearly underlines the separation between work and living function. External, extremely flat façades as a simple expression of the plan. Current parement of bluestone slabs on a plinth of shale stone (originally cemented and painted white above a black base of tarred stone or a as it were symbolically elevated, made floating, of living above working). Wide window registers (metal windows). Partially kept open third floor, originally with tree in courtyard garden. On the right, on the Vaderlandstraat, a kind of tower, imposed as a connection with the house next door. Visual impression of staircase function, but on the living floor elaborated as a cupboard; on the top floor with spiral staircase to the solarium (originally designed as a transparent tower). Interior conceived entirely by Eysselinck with a maximum of space and as much as possible elimination of boundaries between inside and outside. Since 1968 it has been partially rebuilt in a miserable way. Ground floor with covered parking space at the front and open hall with iron external stairs to the living floor, currently built-in. On the Fleurusstraat, two offices, originally with built-in cupboards and concrete work table (disappeared), windows with reinforced glass. Garage, originally without a door to the hall (according to Eysselinck, a car was a piece of furniture that was used occasionally). Interior and exterior staircase to the living floor with living room with preserved built-in cupboard in tower and cactus conservatory in the corner window (recessed in wall thickness), dining room with concrete table with a rubber-covered support, originally with stackable chairs for which a storage cupboard was provided next to the so-called picture cupboard (disappeared). Pass-through cupboard to the kitchen, designed as a kind of laboratory (now renewed). Huge storage space behind the stairs. Third, rest floor with bedroom (originally bed designed by Eysselinck) and two sleeping cabins with concrete beds, now demolished and converted into a room; bathroom with sanitary ware imported from America. Original roof terrace disappeared and open spaces covered with corrugated iron.

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