Baron Victor Horta

Baron Victor Horta (1861-1947), Belgian architect, one of the pioneers and leading practitioners of Art Nouveau architecture. He abandoned the Neo-Classical style of his schooling in favour of an innovative Art Nouveau approach that emphasized irregular shapes and lush curved lines. His first major work, Hôtel Tassel (1893), in Brussels, set forth his principal themes: exposed cast iron as a structural material; a centralized floor plan in place of the traditional corridor arrangement; and close attention to ornamentation. He supervised the interior decoration—even the furniture design—of all his buildings, and his characteristic flowing “whiplash lines”, inspired by plant motifs, were prominent in his wall decorations, doors, and staircases, as exemplified in his most lavish private house, Hôtel Solvay (1894), in Brussels. In public buildings such as the Maison du Peuple (1899, destroyed 1964), the Brussels headquarters of the Belgian Socialist Party, he produced glass and iron façades that were some of the most advanced of their day. He was an important European predecessor of the modern 20th-century International Style, particularly in his use of exposed structural ironwork and glass façades. His Hôtel Tassel, Hôtel Solvay, Hôtel van Eetvelde, and Maison and Atelier Horta, all in Brussels, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000.