Dahliastraat: a touch of art deco and modernism

Where Dahliastraat makes a bend towards Chrysantenplein, there are five houses with a view that is unique for the neighborhood. These houses were designed by architect Van Roey and built in 1937. The style was really 'in' for those years. We are talking about a simple art deco style: a cubist play of white-painted, continuous lintels between the ground floor and the upper floor, reinforced by the use of different types of bricks. This white-painted accent is repeated in the lintels of the other rectangular windows. The houses are mirrored. A corner house looks just a bit different: the small windows on the upper floor are missing. This suggests a slightly different layout.

Art deco, in its industrialized form, was always rectangular and often repetitive. However, this did not mean that there was a lack of a sense of decoration. In its beautiful form, we see this in the use of stained glass. Only one of these row houses still has leaded glass in the upper lights. The shapes remain simple, but the colors provide a vivid accent.

Jan Rymenams