The Hôtel van Eetvelde (; ) is a historic

town house A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residen ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium. It was designed by

Victor Horta Victor Pierre Horta (; Victor, Baron Horta after 1932; 6 January 1861 – 8 September 1947) was a Belgian architect and designer, and one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement. He was a fervent admirer of the French architectural theoris ...

for

Edmond van Eetvelde Edmond van Eetvelde ( 21 April 1852 – 8 December 1925) was a Belgian diplomat and first General Administrator of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Independent State of the Congo. He is also famous for commissioning the Belgian Art Nouvea ...

, administrator of

Congo Free State The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...

, and built between 1895 and 1898, in

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

style. It is located at 4, / in the

Squares Quarter The Squares Quarter (; or ) is a quarter of Brussels, Belgium. The district is the northern spur of the European Quarter, located between Saint-Josse-ten-Noode and the Leopold Quarter. It is bounded by the / to the north, the / and the / to ...

(eastern part of the

City of Brussels The City of Brussels is the largest List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, municipality and historical City centre, centre of the Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the French Community of Belgium, the ...

). Two extensions, also designed by Horta, were added between 1898 and 1901. Together with three other town houses of Victor Horta, including Horta's own house and workshop, it was added to the

UNESCO World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by int ...

list in 2000 as the core of epoch-making urban residences that Horta designed before 1900.

Building

Main building

The visible application of "industrial" materials, such as steel and glass, was a novel for prestigious private dwellings at the time. In the Hôtel van Eetvelde,

also used a hanging steel construction for the façade. The interior receives additional lighting through a central reception room covered by a

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

. File:Hotel van Eetvelde 2012-06 --3.jpg, General view File:Belgique - Bruxelles - Hôtel Van Eetvelde - 08.jpg, Upper part of the main façade File:Hotel van Eetvelde.jpg, Panel of mosaics

Extensions

A first extension to the house was designed by Horta in 1898. This building has a more conventional, beautifully detailed,

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

façade. It was designed to house a garage, an office for van Eetvelde, as well as supporting apartments, and therefore had a separate entrance at 2, /. This house later became the home of the architect Jean Delhaye, a collaborator of Horta, who became, after the latter's death, the great defender of his work. In 1901, Horta added a second extension to the house, on the other side this time, on half of a plot acquired by van Eetvelde, who directly sold the other half to his neighbour. File:Belgique - Bruxelles - Hôtel Van Eetvelde - 02.jpg, The first extension at 2, / File:Belgique - Bruxelles - Hôtel Van Eetvelde - 03.jpg, Eastern façade of the first extension File:Belgique - Bruxelles - Hôtel Van Eetvelde - 11.jpg, Entrance of the first extension File:Belgique - Bruxelles - Hôtel Van Eetvelde - 05.jpg, The second extension

Interior

The interior of the central building revolves around an octagonal

rotunda A rotunda () is any roofed building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building (an example being the one below the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.). ...

surmounted by a skylight. This rotunda and its glass roof were reconstructed in 1988, as they were originally designed by Horta. Horta combined here a rest area and a movement area; the rotunda has the function of a small living room or Winter Garden, but it is surrounded by a circulation area that provides the connection with the living room, the dining room and stairwell. The cupola with its coloured stained glass windows is supported by eight steel columns, which "are integrated into this vegetal world like rods". The dining room door is adorned with

opalescent Opalescence or play of color is an optical phenomena, optical phenomenon associated with the mineraloid gemstone opal,opalescent. 2019. In Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Retrieved January 7, 2019, from https:// ...

glass whose tint changes according to the intensity and incidence of light. File:Winter Garden in the Hôtel Van Eetvelde (rue Palmerston, 4, Brussels).jpg, The Winter Garden File:Belgique - Bruxelles - Hôtel Van Eetvelde - 20.jpg, Detail of the Winter Garden File:Belgique - Bruxelles - Hôtel Van Eetvelde - 21.jpg, Doorway with

Awards

The

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

commission recognised the Hôtel van Eetvelde as

in 2000, as part of the listing '

Major Town Houses of the Architect Victor Horta The major town houses of Victor Horta are four town houses in Brussels, Belgium, which have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. All four houses were designed and built by the Belgian architect Victor Horta (1861–1947), wh ...

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

*
Hôtel van Eetvelde on greatbuildings.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hotel Van Eetvelde Houses in Belgium City of Brussels World Heritage Sites in Belgium Victor Horta buildings Art Nouveau architecture in Brussels Art Nouveau houses Houses completed in 1900