Brussels: Art Nouveau & Art Deco

 

Brussels is a lot better than just the host of the world’s most parasitic bureaucracy, it is also, say Bruxellians, “the undeniable capital of Art Nouveau & Art Deco.” And since it was recently International Art Nouveau Day …

 

 

 

 

Art Nouveau – Brussels edition

The city of Brussels is now the home of the world’s biggest bureaucracy, but around the turn of century it played host to something more life-enhancing—with architects Victor Horta, Paul Cauchie, and Henry Van de Velde it was a pioneer is launching the organic style of Art Nouveau on the world, a style using the new materials of steel and glass to begin to liberate architecture from the past, and make the machine age more natural.

Here’s a trip around just a few of the many thousand beautiful Art Nouveau buildings built in Brussels around that time and since.

And here’s a few more stunning examples in this trip around European Art Nouveau.

Victa Horta -- Horta House

Victor Horta designed this Brussels house for himself in 1893, and with its design he invented Art Nouveau.

His intention was to use the new materials of steel and glass to begin to liberate architecture from the past. 

His treatment of the traditional European house form is still just pure delight. A film exists that "describes the development of the Art Nouveau movement in Brussels, Vienna and Germany and introduces the viewer to fascinating personalities - Horta, Hoffmann, Van de Velde, Ohlbrich, Mahler, Klimt and Schiele."

You can download all 65MB of it here, if you're keen, like I am. :-)

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