Description
Built in 1895, the “Bains Dunkerquois” building with its decorated facade and onion dome is a beautiful representative of the neo-Moorish architectural style very popular in the second half of the 19th century.
At this time, which was also that of the beginning of sea bathing, a concern for public hygiene led the municipality to decide to build a popular bathing establishment.
The project was entrusted to three architects from Lille, Albert Baert, Georges Boidin and Louis Gilquin.
The place, initially called the 'Jean Bart Baths', housed an indoor swimming school, shower baths and a wash house but also a café-restaurant whose management quickly proved to be in deficit, not to mention a hairdressing salon and a bathroom. fencing.
The bays with horseshoe arches and the “lion facade” with Byzantine-inspired mosaics all give its character to the building, listed in the supplementary inventory of historic monuments in 1982.
The damage caused by the First World War led to the closure of the Baths in 1921, until the city of Dunkirk undertook renovation work including the construction of a new boiler room.
The establishment was again hit hard by bombings during the Second World War. The bulb above the entrance, the chimney of the boiler room in the shape of a minaret with twisted polychrome bricks as well as the two columns on the cut-off corner were destroyed as were certain decorative elements.
The reopening of the Baths would wait until 1953... but the establishment was closed again in 1956-57 then in 1959 for the restoration of the small pool.
Closed permanently in 1975, due to their dilapidated state, the “Bains Dunkerquois” have nevertheless stood the test of time. However, their demolition was mentioned at the beginning of the 1980s, during a project to expand the sub-prefecture which adjoins the building.
The bulb was restored identically during the exterior restoration of the building carried out in 2010, the work of which was partly financed by the Heritage Foundation.
In a city dedicated to reconstruction in the 1950s, the “Bains Dunkerquois” remain a testimony to a bygone era and one of the rare pre-war public buildings.