Cauchie House
A house that advertises itself. Cauchie painted his living, in plaster, across his own front wall.
At a glance
The Cauchie House stands at 5, rue des Francs in Etterbeek, beside the Cinquantenaire park, and was built in 1905 by Paul Cauchie — architect, painter, and above all a specialist in sgraffito, the technique of scratching a design through coloured plaster layers. He and his wife Caroline Voet conceived the front as a working advertisement: tall allegorical figures and the motto “Par Nous — Pour Nous” (By Us — For Us). The narrow facade is one of the most photographed pieces of Art Nouveau decoration in Brussels.
Key facts
- Architect: Paul Cauchie
- Built: 1905
- Style: Art Nouveau, with sgraffito decoration
- Address: 5, rue des Francs, Etterbeek, Brussels
- Plot width: roughly 6 metres
- Function: home and studio; now open to the public on set days
- Motto: “Par Nous — Pour Nous”
History
Paul Cauchie trained young, first at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and then in Brussels, where he studied painting and learned the sgraffito technique through courses in decorative painting in the 1890s. He was, by his own positioning, more decorator than architect: apart from his own house, only three buildings by him are documented.
In 1905 he married Caroline Voet, a painter and drawing teacher, and the couple built on a plot barely six metres wide next to the Cinquantenaire park. Cauchie designed the front deliberately to sell their work — his sgraffito, her teaching — to anyone walking the nearby roads. The house was a shop window before it was a home.
Listed as a protected monument, the building has passed through several owners and survived periods of neglect before restoration returned its facade to full colour. It now operates as a small house-museum.
What you see
The facade is almost flat, which is the point: it works as a painted panel rather than a sculpted front. Across its upper register, large female allegories of the arts hold the composition together, their lines scratched and coloured into the plaster so the wall reads at a distance like a fresco.
At the centre Cauchie set the words “Par Nous — Pour Nous”, naming the house as a joint work of husband and wife. Where Horta argued in iron, Cauchie argued in surface — the same Art Nouveau conviction that a building should declare its maker, carried out with a brush instead of a beam.
Practical information
- The house-museum opens on limited days each month; confirm the current schedule before travelling.
- The facade is visible from the public street at any time.
- Time needed: 30–45 minutes with the interior, 10 minutes for the facade alone.
- Pair the visit with the adjacent Cinquantenaire park.
Getting there
The house sits in Etterbeek on the south-west flank of the Cinquantenaire park. The nearest metro stations are Mérode and Schuman, each a short walk away, and several tram and bus lines pass the park.
Nearby
- Cinquantenaire park and its museums, immediately adjacent.
- Hôtel van Eetvelde and Saint-Cyr House, in the Squares Quarter to the north.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Cauchie House”.
- Maurice Culot & Anne-Marie Pirlot, Bruxelles Art Nouveau (Archives d’Architecture Moderne, 2005).
- Brussels regional heritage listings.
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