Aarschot and architecture. Architect's house by Victor Van Roey

(Albertlaan 15)

This is the architect's house of Victor Van Roey, built in 1924. It is a corner house and not coincidentally, the main side is the one facing Albertlaan. You can tell this by the location of the entrance, the taller living space, and the richer decoration on this side.

What stands out here? Straight lines and rectangles.

In contrast to the regionalist house of architect Fonteyn, a bit further down this lane and built a year earlier, the style of this house is art deco, albeit with some influence from the post-war period.

Art deco elements can be seen at the austere entrance where the door section and transom are separated by a beautiful awning, supported by elaborately designed consoles. The entire slightly protruding risalit is a collection of squares and rectangles, crowned at the top with a triangle.

The decoration in the balcony railings at the top and the leaded glass is simple, but clearly art deco due to the very geometric aspect. The ground floor also shows geometric decorations in the windows and the wrought iron work.

Be sure to take a look at the garage door. The wrought iron of the access door is predominantly art deco in its line work and circles, but oddly enough, the crown still has a hint of the flowing lines of floral art nouveau.

Nevertheless, the overall appearance seems somewhat confusing due to a certain chaos of squares and lines. The use of corner blocks also disrupts the simplicity one would expect from art deco. The gable resembles a medieval house.

The lower corner section at Fabrieksstraat appears as if it was 'added on' and only merges into the whole with difficulty. This is likely because the floor on this part was added later. This right section forms more of a unit ‘in’ Fabrieksstraat. You can consider the left part of the house as a standalone residence. The distinction is accentuated by the plinth which consists of hard stone for one part and brick layers for the other added part. The windows – except for the cut-off corner part which is completely and very prominently encapsulated in heavy white frames – do not show any white framing here.

It was not until 1925 that the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was organized in Paris, from which art historian Bevis Hillier derived the term 'art deco' in his 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s. The term would only gain widespread acceptance after 1970. It is logical that we associate art deco with ‘decoration’. In architecture, we immediately think of the basilica of Koekelberg and the Boerentoren for art deco, but many of these ordinary houses were built;

Who was architect Victor Van Roey (1886-1968)?

Victor Van Roey was born on April 5, 1886, in Vorselaar in the Kempen in a large, deeply Christian family of twelve children, four of whom would choose a religious vocation.

His father, Karel Van Roey, worked as a furniture maker and was also mayor of the village from 1896 to 1920. Victor’s older brother Louis Van Roey (°1877 - 1969) served as an assistant pastor in the Aarschot Our Lady parish from 1913 to 1927.

His cousin, also from Vorselaar, was Cardinal Van Roey, who succeeded Désiré-Joseph Mercier as archbishop of Mechelen in 1926. As the cousin of the cardinal, he was naturally well-placed to obtain various church commissions. He worked among others for the church of Werchter (1934) and the basilica of Scherpenheuvel (1936).

Victor Van Roey studied architecture at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Department of Architecture. He moved to Aarschot in 1918, where he worked as an architect, land surveyor, and designer/manufacturer of art and church furniture until 1939. In 1919, he was appointed as a teacher of ‘shadow drawing’ at the Municipal Academy of Aarschot, and from 1935 to 1951, he was the director of this educational institution.

In Aarschot, he received commissions from the gray sisters of the Sint-Elisabeth hospital and from the Picpus fathers of the Damiaaninstitute. As an architect, he built before World War II the new building of the Sint-Jozefscollege along the Schaluin (1934) and the chapel of the hamlet Bergvijver (1938).

During and after World War II, he restored the war damage to the Our Lady Church and built – again for the Sint-Jozefscollege – the new building along the Elisabethlaan (1958).

Victor Van Roey passed away in Aarschot on February 5, 1968, at the age of 81.

Jan Rymenams