The Architect Jean Laurent Hasse (1849–1925) and the Use of Red Main Sandstone in Antwerp, Belgium

Recent investigations revealed that red sandstone was used in the facades of seven buildings from the 19th century by the architect Jean Laurent Hasse (1849–1925). This paper will first introduce Hasse as a leading architect of his time, then discuss the historical context behind the construction of these buildings, move to the material, focusing on the identification of the red sandstone and its source quarry in Germany, the mineralogical characterisation of the samples, and finally detail the current state of conservation of the buildings. Ranging from archival and onsite research on the buildings of Jean Laurent Hasse, to site visit searching for the red sandstone quarries in Baden-Württemberg region in Germany, to laboratory analysis on the mineralogical investigations on the thin sections from the samples, this research embodies a wide range of methods. It is hoped that the findings of this research will enrich current know-how on the building materials and open up further discussions on the imported building materials in the 19th century Antwerp, Belgium.