Maison dite Les Cicognes
Monument
Maison dite Les Cicognes, located in Dunkerque (Nord), is a modern edifice built in the 19th-20th centuries. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Modern (19th-20th century)
- Location
- Dunkerque, Nord, Hauts-de-France
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 51.0372, 2.3924
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00107501
The whimsical jewel of Dunkirk's Excentric district, Les Cicognes is a reinforced concrete villa dating from the 1930s, the fruit of the boundless imagination of a self-taught artist-entrepreneur turned architect by passion.
History
In the heart of Rosendaël, Dunkirk's historic district, stands a house that defies convention and arouses curiosity: Les Cicognes. Listed as a Historic Monument in 1988, this singular villa is part of one of the most unusual residential developments in the north of France, the so-called 'Excentric' district, the brainchild of one man, François Reynaert. Unlike the well-behaved middle-class residences that line the surrounding Flemish avenues, Les Cicognes has a strong architectural personality, the result of an inventive spirit free of academic dogma. Its reinforced concrete architecture, an avant-garde material for its time in individual housing, gives it flexible, plastic forms that brick or stone could not offer. Every angle, every curve, every decorative detail bears witness to the ongoing dialogue between the artist-decorator and the public works contractor who lived side by side in Reynaert. To visit Les Cicognes is to immerse yourself in the special atmosphere of the inter-war period, a time when modernist optimism was combined with the boldest formal experimentation. The house is one of a group of 35 villas built between 1929 and 1939, each with its own architectural vocabulary, but all part of a coherent and spectacular urban composition. A stroll through the Excentric district is as much an architectural tour as a poetic stroll. The Dunkirk setting, with its nearby North Sea and Flemish industrial heritage, adds an extra dimension to the experience. Les Cicognes is not a monument frozen in its past glory: it continues to bear witness, alive and inhabited in its neighbourhood, to an individual's ability to transform a building dream into a recognised heritage. A must-see for any lover of 20th-century architecture in search of surprises.
Architecture
Les Cicognes is part of the experimental architecture of the inter-war period, halfway between Art Deco, whimsical regionalism and popular, inventive modernism. Its constituent material, reinforced concrete, was entirely responsible for its aesthetic appeal: the walls could be moulded, rounded or sculpted in relief, giving Reynaert the kind of plastic freedom that traditional brick or rubble would not have tolerated. The façades probably feature decorative elements - animal motifs, bas-reliefs, the interplay of protruding volumes - in keeping with the designer's sensitivity as a decorative artist, and consistent with the ornamental vocabulary seen on other houses in the Excentric district. The plan of the house meets the requirements of the individual bourgeois villa of the second quarter of the 20th century: reception areas on the ground floor, bedrooms upstairs, with a rational organisation typical of the suburban housing of the period. However, the functional constraints are transcended by the formal freedom of the exterior envelope, which gives the residence the character of a total work of art. The roof, which is probably treated in a number of distinctive ways - terrace, asymmetrical shape or low-pitched roof characteristic of regional modernism - contributes to the stylistic assertion of the whole. In the context of the Excentric district, Les Cicognes interacts with its neighbours while asserting its uniqueness. The use of reinforced concrete, the plasticity of the volumes and the decorative details - including the name of the house itself, evocative of an ornamental motif linked to storks - reveal a designer for whom architecture and decoration were one and the same, extending a global and coherent artistic approach into the building.
Related Figures
François Reynaert — artiste décorateur, inventeur et entrepreneur de travaux publics, natif de Rosendaël, maître d'ouvrage et concepteur autodidacte du quartier Excentric et des Cicognes
Tags
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison dite Les Cicognes located?
Maison dite Les Cicognes is located in Dunkerque, Nord department, Hauts-de-France region, France.
When was Maison dite Les Cicognes built?
Maison dite Les Cicognes dates back to a period built in the modern era (19th-20th century).
Is Maison dite Les Cicognes open to visitors?
Maison dite Les Cicognes is currently closed to visitors.