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© 1993-2012 Frank Derville
Bruxelles is the capital city of Belgium and is also the
capital city of the Art Nouveau world.
It is impossible to count how many buildings had been built around 1900
in the Art Nouveau style. A style that also began in this town with the
Tassel House by Horta in 1893. When reading books about Art Nouveau
there not much place for other works but Horta's or sometimes also
Hankar's. These two architects are the two majors but a lot of other
artists have done a job that is worth seeing: Blérot, Van de
Velde, Hamesse, Taelemans, Vizzavona, Cauchie...
In 1900,
the Bruxelles of nowdays was divided in a lot of little surburb towns
that rounded the inner city. In the second part of the XIXth century,
the city wall was destroyed to make a circling boulevard.
The
inner city was not very touched by Art Nouveau because there were not
many destruction of older quaters but the surburbs like St Gilles/Sint
Gillis, Ixelles/Elsene, Forest/Voorst and Uccle/Ukkel feature hundreds
of Art Nouveau buildings or villas that you still can see nowdays even
if some of them are in a pity shape.
This building is very rational with an AN decorative style : look at the balconies. It is considered by some critics as a starting point of the Belgian modern architecture movement. |
Horta is the most well known Belgian Art Nouveau architect. He built his house distributed around the stair way by half floors. The stair way is topped by a veranda. Horta's house is now Horta's museum and a library dedicated to Art Nouveau. There, you can admire pieces of furniture coming from various houses he built. Horta was a carved stone fanatic, he used it together with iron and glass. He often used a blue stone and designed them stone by stone with plaster models of scale 1. | 76 Kb |
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It is one of the first building built by Van de Velde. This personnal villa has a well designed plan, centered around a two story hall with zenital light. At the first floor, a galerie around the hall let access to every room. Van de Velde designed all the furniture and even the dresses his wife was to wear in this house!!! Van de Velde is the most international architect and designer of the Art Nouveau era: he studied in Anvers, then went to Bruxelles, worked in Berlin and Holland. He was then was called to create a school of architecture in Weimar that will become some years later the Bauhaus. Van de Velde was one of the Art Nouveau curve master. | 82 Kb |
Maybe the most narrow facade of Bruxelles, it is well known for its circled loggia at the top. Circle shape loggias are typical of Belgian Art Nouveau. There are still 3 of them in Bruxelles and Anvers but this building is at the top. The iron work goes in great details like the areal sculpture on the roof. The windows are split in numerous curved panes that represent well the Belgian Art Nouveau trend. Strauven is one of my favourite AN artist : his work for color textures using colored bricks is great. His houses feature always a lot of details which can reminds somehow barroco art and often use a personnal gothic interpretation in its structural designs. The feeling of highness is nearly omnipresent in his works. | 72 Kb |
The two following buildings are 200 meters away from the King's palace.
An All iron and glass building. It is now transformed into a museum. It will open in October 1997. The iron work is really fine. | 71 Kb |
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The Art-Nouveau-round-the-world server is dedicated to promote a better knowledge of the Art Nouveau period (1890-1914) |