Louis Delacenserie

Vocation

Belgian architect from Bruges during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The family name was written in different ways: De la censerie, De la Censerie, Dela Sencerie. He was a laureate of the Prix de Rome in 1862. This prize enabled him to travel to Paris, Italy and Greece where he could admire masterpieces of antique architecture. After his studies he worked for a while in the office of Louis Roelandt, architect to the city of Ghent who worked in the Neo-Classical style. In his early career Delacenserie adopted the Neo-Classical style of his teachers. After he was appointed architect to the city of Bruges he became involved in the Belgian Gothic Revival movement. He led many "restorations" of the rich Gothic architectural heritage of his native city. This made him familiar with the Gothic brick and sandstone architecture of medieval Flanders. At the pinnacle of his career Delacenserie made the designs for the central station in Antwerp. In this design he made use of a rather eclectic Neo-Renaissance style that refers to the economic and artistic prime of the city in the 16th century. He died on 2 September 1909 in Brugge, Belgium. Link to Wikipedia biography