Brussels is not only the
capital of European and the siege of the E.U. but declares itself, and with
great pride and truth, as the capital of Art Nouveau. There is no other city in
the world with such a rich heritage of this tendency, developed at the end of
the 19th and beginning of 20th century, a renovating
movement of architecture and decorative arts, reacting against the bourgeois and
classic constraints. Brussels (-despite a lot ahs been destroyed by ruthless
real estate promoters, the architectural criminals of the century I call them)
has still plenty of them, scattered all over the city (there are special Art
nouveau building visits tours) but the most are still to see in Exiles and of
course the rue
Americaine with the incomparable HORTA HOUSE.
Other works and buildings were left by architects like Paul Hankar, Henry van de
Velde, Ernest Blerot, Gustave Strauven and Paul Cauchie.
It was, in fact, in the
quarters located around the Avenue Louise, that the architectural movement
appeared -- known elsewhere under the names Modern Style, Jugendstil, Secession,
or Liberty. During its initial period, Brussels Art Nouveau was an exclusively
local phenomenon. And it was Brussels Art Nouveau which influenced the Parisian
artist Hector Guimard, and which gave the Viennese Otto Wagner the idea of
abandoning his neo-Renaissance constructions.
The greatest of them all was VICTOR HORTA. In 1893, Victor Horta built a house
intended to serve as an architectural manifesto for a new style -- the Tassel
House was built for his friend Emile Tassel, Professor at the Free University of
Inside Tassel house
Horta wanted to create a global and harmonious interior decoration, with new
inspiration and which refused to copy the styles of the past, as 19th century
architects had been doing. The forms that he gave to his furnishings, and the
motifs that decorated his walls, were taken directly from nature. These were the
sources of inspiration that were being used by the "Arts and Crafts"
movement in England.
Horta revolutionized the very design of buildings by giving them a central light
well, by using open floor plans, and by his use of ironwork and organic detail.
At the end of the 19th century, the Avenue Louise was Brussels' most prestigious
artery -- and it was therefore understandable that Horta would build several of
his most beautiful designs here. For example, the Mansion of ARMAND SOLVAY,
built in 1894 at number 224, across the avenue from the rue du Chatelain. It was
in the rue Americaine that Victor Horta built his private home, as well as his
offices and studios. The two houses built side by side in 1898 are today being
used as the Horta Museum.
The official, criminal destruction of The Maison du Peuple constructed in 1895
at the height of the Art Nouveau period (siege of the Socialist party) was
performed in 1963, and although it was destroyed in, the metro station Horta in
Brussels features some of the elements of ironwork from the balustrades that
were in the great hall of the Maison du Peuple.
Recently, a restaurant, café in Antwerp, called “Café Horta” recuperated
also some construction elements of the building and integrated them into the
In my next article of this series we will visit the Herat sand some more Art
Nouveau houses, magnificent pears and jewels of architecture throughout