Victor Horta Hôtel Van Eetvelde
Victor Horta considered the Hotel van Eetvelde as the « boldest » design of his career. Comissioned by Edmonde van Eetvelde in 1895, the townhouse was built in the new Squares district of Brussels, and featured a huge winter garden topped by a window well. This space, lit by a splendid dome with a scalloped profile and white, pink and green stained glass, is the main intersection of the house.
The house, one of the most emblematic Art Nouveau buildings in Brussels, can be seen as a veritable manifesto of Horta’s work. It juxtoposes industrial elements, such as the exposed metal load-bearing structure in the living room, with precious materials: rare green onyx panelling, mahogany, stained glass...
More than just a home, the building also functioned as a showroom, where Edmond van Eetvelde, a high ranking official in the Belgium colonial administration, would organise events and show off the natural resources of the colony he managed : the Congo.
Edmond van Eetvelde had long been interested in art, collecting vases and ornements during his visits to China and India, and sending them back to Belgium.
He was naturally drawn to the new artistic current in Brussels at the time : Art Nouveau, a movement which emerged in reaction to industrial standardisation, promoting a renewed respect or craftsmanship, materials, and artistic individuality, in a similar way to the Arts & Crafts movement taking place at the same time in the UK.
One of the leading figures of the new Art Nouveau movement - alongside Paul Hankar and Henry van de Velde - was Victor Horta, who designed the Hotel Tassel in 1893, combining the use of modern materials with organic, free-flowing forms.
Unlike most architects of his time, Victor Horta did not come from an elite or aristocratic background. Instead, he grew up in a hands-on, craft-oriented environment (his father was a shoemaker). This background shaped his later work, with its attention to materials, detail, and craftsmanship, the foundation for Art Nouveau's emphasis on the total work of art.
As a contemporary critic wrote in L’Art Moderne (1900), “decoration is not an addition but the continuation of architectural thought.” Structure, ornament, and furniture were to form a unified whole.
The façade of the building designed by Horta for van Eetveld is dominated by a huge oriole proudly exposing both mosaic panels and the riveted steel girders that support it. Iron and glass are not concealed but celebrated, becoming central elements of the building’s aesthetic. This approach reflects a broader rethinking of modernity: where materials associated with industry are elevated beyond utility to artistic expression.
However, the aesthetic language - linked to industrial materials and progressive ideas - carried associations with contemporary socialist thought, which soon became disagreeable to Van Eetvelde's wife. When it came to creating an extension, Van Eetvelde requested Horta use stone rather than steel.
The interiors of the hotel van Eetvelde highlight Horta’s attention to detail. In the entrance hall, the coffered ceiling features a diagonal pattern, inspired by Japanese aesthetics. In Japan diagonals are used to evoke the natural world, and to create movement, asymmetry and dynamic tension, contrasting with the rigid symmetry typical of Western architecture.
The green and blue tones of the staircase contrast strongly with the rich tones of red featured in the entrance hall.
Here Horta departs from the precepts of Art Nouveau, which generally feature much softer transitions. He is using colour to make a statement, showing guests that they have transitioned into a new space, the colours symbolising the tropical landscapes of the Congo Free state, of which van Eetvelde was administrator.
Covered by a stained glass dome and positioned at mezzanine level, the Winter garden acts as the symbolic centre of the house. Here, the architecture takes on an organic form. Slender iron columns branch outward like trees, supporting the dome and transforming the space into a luminous interior garden. Light filters through the stained glass, rising upward, reinforcing a sense of openness and continuity.
Exotic decorative motifs, materials sourced from the Congo, and tropical plants reinforced the colonial imaginary.
Artistic works such as the sculptures "Civilisation" and "Barbarism" echoed contemporary ideologies, presenting colonial expansion as a civilising mission.
“Calling upon art to help instill in a people a love for a colony, to make its natural riches known (...), that is no ordinary thing. And (...) this provocative exhibition of the colonial enterprise succeeded in concealing mercantilism beneath the appearance of a picturesque spectacle, infinitely pleasing to the mind and to the eyes!” Revue des Arts décoratifs, 1897, p.360.
For the Brussels international Exhibition of 1897, Van Eetvelde called upon leading figures in the Art Nouveau movement such as Paul Hankar, Gustave Serrurièr-Bovy, Henry van de Velde and Georges Hobé to decorate the Tervueren pavilion - showing a large range of pieces made in Congolese wood, minerals, fabric and ivory.
The link between Art Nouveau and the Congo became so close that the movement was sometimes dubbed "Congo style".
The Hôtel van Eetvelde can be seen as a total work of art, encapsulating the ambitions and contradictions of Art Nouveau.
Although the idea of showcasing structural elements, and surrounding the ordinary man with beauty, had connotations of socialism, only a particularly wealthy clientele could afford the works created, which had become "art". The concept of a comprehensive art form, entirely designed by an artist to meet the specific needs of a client, ultimately prevented its adaptation to the changing post-war society.
This would ultimately lead to the demise of Art Nouveau and the emergence of Art Deco, which, with its geometric shapes, clean lines and mass industrial production, was designed to be accessible to the growing middle class.
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