Art Nouveau and Art Deco in Schaerbeek

In the early years of the twentieth century, the village of Schaerbeek was transformed by the construction of the prestigious Avenue Louis Bertrand. A new, leafy, residential district attracted wealthy residents who commissioned the best architects of the day. Victor Horta, Gustave Strauven, François Hemelsoet and Henri Jacobs reinvented the single-family house, the apartment building and even the school there. A few years later, a short distance away, part of the railway line linking Brussels-Luxembourg station with Brussels-North station was moved, and the very beautiful Avenue Paul Deschanel was laid out along the former line. It became a veritable repository of inter-war architecture, between Art Deco and Modernism, containing a mix of single-family houses and apartment buildings, often with spectacular facades.