Stadsarchief Sint-Felix pakhuis

Stadsarchief Sint-Felix pakhuis stands near Willemdok in Antwerp, where warehouses and railway connections once crowded the busy port. Its neoclassical façade encloses two main wings, joined by a covered street roughly six to seven metres wide.

Felix Pauwels designed the warehouse for the Compagnie Générale de Matériels des Chemins de Fer in the late 1850s. Shoes, glassware, coffee, hops, and especially tobacco once filled its storage spaces. A fire from a neighbouring sugar refinery spread through the building in December 1861, killing at least ten people. Brick construction, iron doors, and firebreak corridors followed the disaster, while hydraulic lifts and cranes moved goods through the vast interior. More than 1,500 wooden support pillars once strengthened the structure after part of its rear wall collapsed under excessive weight.

Since 2006, FelixArchief has preserved Antwerp’s municipal records alongside collections from families, businesses, associations, and individuals. The public reading room holds more than one hundred visitors, while changing exhibitions bring archival materials into view. The former passage for goods now accommodates cultural activities, and restored cranes still reveal how this protected industrial monument worked.