Leon Delune

Leon Delune is a Belgian architect born with Marbais in the the Brabant Walloon in 1862 and deceased in 1941 with Ixelles (Brussels).

His/her father Hubert Joseph Delune building contractor leaves his village to settle with his wife and his eight children with Ixelles where work does not miss in this period of demographic expansion.

Leon like three of his brothers, makes his studies with the royal Académie of the Art schools of Brussels of 1885 to 1891, it follows there courses of Sculpture and of Architecture and will teach later there.

One of its first achievements is the family home built according to its plans, by his/her father in 1891 with Ixelles (which occurred of the Gold Spurs n° 3) in edge of the ponds of Ixelles. Its creations are representative of the styles eclectic and Art nouveau.

It is not always easy to make the share between the work which is attibuée to him and those of his brothers also architects, Aimable, Edmond and Ernest Delune.

The Delune House

The building currently known under the name of Maison Delune also called the Château (or the Castle Feys , of the name of the one of its owners) is probably the most known realization of the architect.

Located on what is today the avenue Franklin Roosevelt with Brussels, this construction is the result of an astonishing mixture of the styles, Art nouveau and eclectic with Byzantine influences. The history of its construction and its use is with the height of the impression of mystery which it causes.

It was built in 1904 from the point of view of the organization of the World Fair of Brussels of 1910. Although the final site of the exposure is not fixed yet at the time, the plate of the Solbosch then located in full shift seemed to be a probable place. The layout of the ways not being established yet, the house is conceived with an entry on each frontage.

The silent partner however deceased in 1907 and the house is repurchased by the Feys family. Many buildings and houses built for the exposure, the Maison Delune is the single vestige. During this one, it is rented and is used as cabaret, where, every evening, the visitors will discover for the first time in Belgium, the jazz Ragtime played by an Afro-American group the American Negros minstlers of Alabama the U.S.A. . She escapes the terrible fire which devastates the exposure, August 14th and 15th 1910.

Towards 1920 the owner, Rene Feys, makes carry out certain transformations with the back frontage by the architect Georges Hobé. It expatriate for the E. - U. before the beginning of the Second world war. During this one the house is occupied by a detachment of the German army.

After the Release, the house is given up and plundered on several occasions, the decorative pieces interior, to the chimneys and parquet floors disappear then. It esr squattée and is used as place of evenings to the students of the close university. Rumors also run on the not very advisable use of the two levels of cellars, traffic of weapons and black masses.

Even the eagle gilded out of cast iron which however weighs 350 kilos stolen and was fortunately found in a second-hand dealer in 1999.

It is only in 1994, that a procedure of classification is set in motion by the Région of Brussels-Capital.

The so animated restoration it and several times stopped, is completed only in 2005. A fortunate coincidence, made it possible to discover in the attic of the Maison Cauchie the original projects of the Sgraffite S realized by Paul Cauchie for the Delune House, which made it possible to remake them with the identical one.

The écrivaine of Brussels Jacqueline Harpman locates the unfolding of its novel at it “happiness in the crime”.

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