Hotel van Eetvelde

The hotel van Eetvelde is a splendid private mansion of style Art nouveau (2-4 avenue Palmerston with Brussels) conceived by the architect Victor Horta in two stages with the angle of the Marie-Louise public garden and the Palmerston avenue. Mr. Edmond van Eetvelde, general secretary for the State independent of Congo (which is still at the time the private property of Léopold II), called upon Victor Horta to materialize his social success in the stone, and to allow him to organize receptions in an adapted residence, and of an innovative style. Besides let us note in the passing that Léopold II had understood perfectly that the Art nouveau was ideally adapted to emphasize materials of Congo, such as invaluable wood, ivory, etc It is there one of the reasons for which this style was dominating in the decoration of the colonial section of the international exhibition of 1897, installed in Tervueren.

The daring frontage of the n° 4 and 6 and its apparent metal structure go up with 1895. The architect appears innovator particularly there, just like for the interior spaces organized around a canopy bathing of a soft clearness spaces of reception to extreme refinement. In the beginning, the ground of the hall located under this canopy comprised even glazed flagstones improving lighting of the cellars. Horta uses, for the first time within the framework of a private house, an imposing metal structure which it deploys either to support the stages in light projection (the consoles), or to frame the windows by vertical uprights and slightly arched lintels. The decoration of the frontage is very sober, even if the reasons in mosaic become complicated to the top, like announcing that of the balustrade of the higher balcony. The right lintels of the French windows of the last stage directly support the cornice, rythmée by many consoles.

Carried out three years later, extension of angle (n° 2) is recognized easily by its carefully cut stone frontage. It was intended to add an office and a room of billiards to the principal residence, with which these parts communicated. For the remainder, it also included/understood apartments of report/ratio. Its style is more decorated and points out the personal house of Horta which it has just completed American street with Saint-Gilles. This tendency to privilege the ornamentation will not be contradicted any more in its posterior achievements. Such an amount of the main door which the framings of window carry the mark of this concern by the variety and the sensuality of the lines dug in the stone.

The woodworks of the office, in clear mahogany tree of Congo and coral according to the wishes of its silent partner form one of most beautiful still existing decorations the, due to the architect.

In 2000, the hotel van Eetvelde was registered with three other major constructions of Horta on the list of the World heritage of UNESCO.

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