And you called me to construct a temple on your holy mount, and, in the city of your dwelling, an altar in the likeness of your holy tabernacle, which you have prepared from the beginning.
It started with a chapel...
Planned on the development plan of the North-East district designed by the architect Gédéon Bordiau and approved by the Royal Decree of 20.12.1875, the church that was to take square Marguerite is still not completed in 1895. Tired long distances to reach the places of worship of neighboring communes, the inhabitants of the district have a chapel built at No. 20 rue du Noyer, in the territory of Schaerbeek. The building is open as a church of the new parish of the Sacred Heart, November 1, 1895.
Confronted with the fait accompli, the City of Brussels gives a negative opinion concerning the parish. Its creation is nevertheless approved by the Royal Decree of 27. 10.1896. The City will then constantly stop the attempts of the parish to build a real church in the neighborhood.
... continued with the first church of 'Sacré-Coeur'...
In 1907, his parish priest, Félix Buelens, made a request to build a “conference room” on a plot of land belonging to him on rue Le Corrège. The project is signed by architects Georges Cochaux and Alex Struyven.
During construction, the City learns that the future hall is actually intended to serve as a church. The municipal council then demands the stop of the works. The City eventually approved the slightly revised plans of the building, erected this time by the architect Victor Janssen. The place of worship is consecrated on March 19, 1909.
... to finish with the current church
In 1941, it appears that the church, designed as temporary, was not built using “first quality” materials and that heavy restorations are required. Given the increase in the number of parishioners, the building is also too small. The parish is considering the construction of a new church. A preliminary draft is designed by architect Leonard Homez. The construction is to take place in the street Correggio, on the ground adjacent to the church, previously acquired by the parish.
In 1942, however, the City proposed to build the new church on the other side of the block, avenue Michel-Ange, after expropriation of our 18 to 24 of it. The parish agrees with this idea but the project is finally abandoned.
In the aftermath of the war, in 1952, architect Jo De Bouver drew a new project for the parcel adjoining the church. The construction of the building began in 1954. In late 1956, the old church, amputated from its left aisle, became a parish hall. Modified several times, the interior has been converted since 2003 into an Orthodox Syriac church.
Church Building
The current church is inspired by neo-Gothic style and it was designed in 1952 on the plans of the architect Jo de Bouver.
The church is built from red bricks. The white stone of Savonnières adorns the ground floor and punctuates the higher levels. Blue stone. is used for the base. Ground floor basement with broken arc flattened. Windows have slanted sills.
Facade of the gabled nave with a stone cross. In a high broken frame with projections, a wide axial entrance flanked by light fixtures on a plinth, under five high and narrow ogival windows, with continuous crosspiece. They are underlined by the inscription “domus dei domus orationis”.
High square tower-bell tower, under roof with spire and weather vane. Towards the street, a niche today devoid of a statue, under two levels of twin loophole windows. Chamber of louvered bells. To the left of the tower, narrow body of three levels, pierced by a service door and a window on each floor.
Right avant-corps of two bays, the main one under the gable, the other at the entrance. Paired, rectangular windows upstairs. Pavilion roof dormer.
Paneled doors and metal frames preserved.
Yellow brick interior. Nave under broken barrel vault, punctuated by diaphragm arches in concrete. It is lit laterally by triplets with broken arches included in a frame of the same shape.
Side aisles open to the nave by flattened pointed arches. They house, in the second bay on the south side and in the third bay, three blond wooden confessionals, also under a flattened pointed arch. The walls of the aisles are decorated with ceramic paintings in relief, depicting the stations of the cross.
The choir consists of three parts of decreasing height, delimited by broken diaphragm arches, the last two on squat columns. It is lit laterally by three twin windows and, at the bottom, by a triplet decorated with stained glass signed “R. Crickx Fecit”: they represent Christ on the cross, Saint Longinus the Centurion piercing the side of Jesus with his spear and the Virgin. Floor and altar in black veined marble. To the left of the choir, a monumental ceramic relief representing the Virgin and Child, placed after the consecration of the church.
Above the entrance vestibule, organ gallery. The latter was designed in a neo-Gothic style in 1909 by Émile I Kerkhoff for the expiatory church of the Blessed Sacrament of Miracle of the convent of the Ladies of Perpetual Adoration, located rue Van Maerlant. The organ was sold to the Church of the Sacred Heart in 1980, after the closure of the convent, now converted into offices.
Source: www.irismonument.be