Antoine Varlet


Antoine Varlet was a Belgian architect. He specialised in luxury apartment buildings in Beaux-Arts and later Art Deco styles.

Biography

Antoine Varlet was, with Michel Polak and Sta Jasinski , one of the pioneers of apartment building construction in Brussels.
His name appeared for the first time in the Brussels landscape in 1923 for an industrial complex at 42, rue de la Gare in Etterbeek, in collaboration with his brother, architect W. Varlet. Still in 1923, they renovated a neoclassical together at 27, rue de l'Est.
In 1927, he signs his first apartment building at 110, avenue de Tervueren.
He was follower, like his colleague Pierre De Groef , of the Beaux-Arts style in the middle of the Art Deco era. However, he quickly turned from 1929 onwards to an Art Deco style mixed with elements of Beaux-Arts style. As he died young and did not participate after the war in the blossoming of apartment buildings, his work, which marks the Brussels landscape, has not yet been the subject of an in-depth study.
His specialty was makings buildings at street corners which give a wider perspective. A practice which has served as a precedent for many architects in Brussels since then.

Art Deco era

Starting in 1929, his style becomes influenced by the then dominant Art Deco style, while still keeping many Beaux-Arts elements in his works : red or orange brick facades, bordered with white stones, forged iron doors, decorative low and high reliefs, which help mitigate a coldness that is sometimes found in Art Deco buildings. He thus created his own mix of styles.