Art Nouveau: Victor Horta

           Victor Horta, (1861-1947) was a Belgian architect and designer who belonged in the Art Nouveau movement. He is described as the “key to European Art Nouveau architect”, and sometimes credited as the first to introduce the style of architecture from the decorative arts.

            The Art Nouveau movement began in Belgium in 1892 and spread throughout Europe. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau was the first systematic attempt to replace the classical system of architecture and the decorative arts. Key influences were the English ‘free-style’ house, the use of iron, and Viollet le Duc’s theories: main ideas, spatial organization according to function, importance of materials, concept of organic form, and study of vernacular domestic architecture.

            After receiving a Beaux-Arts architectural training, Horta spent over ten years working with a neoclassical style, which was slightly modified by Viollet le Duc’s constructional rationalism. In 1893, he designed an original private house for Emile Tassel, professor of descriptive geometry. The Hotel Tassel was the first in a series of houses that he built for elite Belgian professionals, in which he combined Viollet le Duc’s principle of exposed metal structure with ornamental motifs derived from the French and English decorative arts.

            The Hotels Tassel, Solvay, and Van Eetvelde, which were designed between 1892 and 1895, present a clever range of solutions to typical narrow Brussels sites. All three plans were divided into three sections with a central section that contained a top-lit staircase. The staircase was a vital element to the buildings because it was the visual and social hub of the hotel. In the principle floor of each hotel, there was a suite of reception rooms and conservatories with spatial fluidity, accentuated by the glass and mirrors. In his memoirs, Horta described the Hotel Solvay as a “dwelling like any other… but with interior characterized by an exposed metal structure and series of glass screens fiving an extended perspective… for evening receptions”.

Hotel Tassel, 1892-3 | Plans

Hotel Tassel, 1892-3 | Staircase

            Horta’s most important public building was the Maison du Peuple in Brussels of 1896-9. Similar to the hotels, the Beaux- Arts symmetry of the plan vanishes between the asymmetrical programmatic elements. The façade, although it appears to be a smooth undulating skin, is in fact a classical composition arranged around a shallow exhedra (semicircular niche). Because of its continuous glazing and expansive brick surfaces, it had a shocking effect when it was first built.

Maison du Peuple,1896-9 | Plan

Maison du Peuple, 1896-9 | Façade

            Horta challenged the relationship of architecture, art, and nature. As a result, he developed a manner that “integrated geometrically derived ornamental forms based on nature with compositional traditions based on Italian Renaissance architecture”. Combing  new decorative principles into a clear architectural style, he created an analogy between metal structure and plant form. Initially, his designs were flamboyant in detail, but then gradually simplified over time. The style Horta produced was abstract and exotic, a combination of ideas.

Colquhoun, A. (2002). Art Nouveau. Modern Architecture. (pp. 20-22, 24). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Middleton, D. (N.A). Art Nouveau. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from Ball State University Blackboard website: https://blackboard.bsu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_106280_1%26url%3D