Courtens, Antoine

COURTENS, Antoine (1899-1969) of Brussels, Belgium is credited with the design of one of the most striking and original modernist works in Canada during the 20th C. Situated at STE. MARGUERITE DU LAC MASSON, QUE., the resort complex, called Domaine d'Esterel, was financed by the Belgian philanthropist Baron Louis Empain and consisted of the Hotel de la Pointe Bleue (1937), the adjacent community centre comprising a group of shops, cinema, exhibition hall and restaurant (1938), and a vast clubhouse with indoor courts, gymnasium and dressing rooms (Architectural Record [New York], lxxxiv, Dec. 1938, 45-50, illus.; R.A.I.C. Journal, xxiv, March 1947, 86, illus.; Architecture Batiment Construction, iii, July 1948, 28-9, illus.; France Vanlaethem, Patrimoine en Devenir: l'Architecture Moderne du Quebec, 2012, 30-31, illus.; Tim Morawetz, Art Deco Architecture Across Canada, 2017, 117-18, illus. & descrip.). The commercial centre, with its sweeping curved facade, bears a distinct similarity to (and may have been inspired by) the design by Henry van de Velde for the Belgian Pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.
Courtens was born in Brussels on 13 March 1899 and was educated there and in Antwerp. He worked in the studio of Victor Horta, the brilliant originator of the Art Nouveau style, and later assisted Tony Garnier in Lyon. He returned to Brussels in 1928 and opened his own office where he created some of that city's most distinctive landmarks in the Art Deco style. Courtens died in Brussels on 21 June 1969 (biog. and works in Grove Pub. Co., Dictionary of Art, 1996, viii, 63).