JACK-BRUSSELS-The European capital of Art Nouveau

[Jack]

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 Brussels.
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 construction.
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 Brussels.

Jack

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Amsterdam and Venice.
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personal contact address: tra...@jack-travel.com
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