Victor Horta: the Maison Tassel, the Sources of Its Development , / in Architecture, Art Nouveau Initiated a Major Is Inevitable

108 GEORGE TSIHLIAS, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO Victor Horta: The Maison Tassel, The Sources of its Development , / In architecture, Art Nouveau initiated a major is inevitable. N~IY all accounts hold some change in structural thinking, despite its mention of the man whose creative efforts relatively brief and uncertain life. It lasted for were to culminate in the first definitive some 20 years, or even less in some Western manifestation of a significant episode in European countries. Once all the rage, it came modem architectural development. Invariably, to be abandoned by its enthusiastic adherents descriptions of the Maison Tassel figure as the wild oats of youth. Its numerous prominently among their contents. The architectural exponents sought to express the product of a more personalized form of same inspiring motivation which characterized expression, the house represents the first time the applied arts. The correspondingly sinuous Horta came into his own as an architect. It linearity; the biomorphic qualities; the semi evoked the spirit of a generation obsessed naturalistic, semi-abstract elements - both with change, novelty and progress. At the structural and decorative; all were present in same time, it designated the beginning of a its varied examples. Moreover, one had the period which would lead to world fame for the floral reference to the total forms of plants. Belgian architect who engendered it. Upon The leaves; the stalks; the roots; the blossoms; completion, the project was heralded as the these formed the epitome of the constant first declaration of a victorious modem organic expression which was the order of the movement; the first truly modernist work. It day. was revered as if it were some shrine or holy relic. Subsequently, architects and designers The strong desire to break with the past was, from all comers of Europe came to Brussels perhaps, the most common bond linking the so as to understand the scope of what this craftsmen, artists, and architects who sought house represented. their creative expression in Art Nouveau. This was the case in all countries where the style The Maison Tassel stood in a row of rather appeared. To the avant-garde mind, it conventional city residences. It would have provided a captivating contrast to the appeared, and still does, as a somewhat traditional, static, 19th century art forms. Both modest structure, conforming to the same in its content and form, Art Nouveau was conditions which characterized most Flemish insistent on an art of growth. The subsequent urban dwellings. It was similar to its architectural focus seeks to illuminate the neighbours in that it too was long and very work of one of its most significant innovators, narrow, the facade stretching a mere 23 feet Victor Horta. In almost any comprehensive across. Yet, despite these restrictions, the study of the Fin de Siecle phenomenon known house was recogniz~d to embody the. first as Art Nouveau, the appearance of this name daring departure from the norms of European Victor Horta: the Maison Tassel, the sources of its development 109 architecture of the day. Well before any sign column, creating a penetrating first of a new direction in architectural design, impression. As its gracefully slender form Horta's building programme punctuated the climbs toward the ceiling, it grows into a turning point for treatment of the private vase-shaped capital. Out of this, curved iron home. "This house roused Continental tendrils spring forth to form brackets under architecture from its lethargy at one blow." I the curved open work beams of iron above. Consequently, from the day of its completion Their forms are partly plant-like, partly until the present, it has given rise to a variety arbitrary. With thi~lthe classical scheme of of glowing reports delineating the extent of its the column is dissolved, replaced by a / innovations, and its impact. multiplicity of free moving supports in space. Subsequently, the floral conception of form The essence of Horta's entire Art Nouveau which permeates the building is conclusively oeuvre is embodied within this dwelling. The established. What ensues is seduction. choice and "marriage" of materials; the Passionate and yet gentle, an organic swaying floorplan; the facade; all serve as an and interweaving entices the senses into a introduction to the fundamental tenets of his delicately intoxicating structural metaphor. conception. Thus, in examining the building, Lighter, non-structural bands of metal one also comes to appreciate the numerous interlace to form the stair rail. Sinuous painted factors which shaped both the man's evolution vines caress the walls and ceiling. Swirling and his subsequent attempts to instigate a curvilinear mosaics rouse the floor. One yields distinctive architectural approach to the to the linear embrace of complex organic exigencies of his time. motifs.3 Horta created an exemplary hall, unsurpassed by imitators, and to an extent, The plans were conceived in 1892-93, and even by the architect himself. He transcended construction began in September, 1893. the mere decorative, going on to produce an Completion was in 1894. It is unknown how extraordinary work of interior architecture. long before these dates Horta could have been designing as such on paper. The site: 12 rue de The description of the staircase underscores Turin. Presently, it is identified as number 6, the excitingly novel exposure of metal rue Paul-Emile Janson. With this work, the structural supports both inside and out. In the "ligne Horta", the whiplash line, was interior, an equally unexpected introduction of introduced into architecture. It was born to iron occurs in the drawing room. Here, Horta decorate the home of Monsieur Tassel,2 - outrightly challenged the long standing engineer, bachelor, freemason, professor of tradition which maintains a notion of· this descriptive geometry at the University of room as the most formal and therefore Brussels, attache to the Bureau of Studies at conservative area of the house. One can only the Societe Solvay. imagine the impact, both positive and negative, which the appearance of an I-section The most often noticed feature of the house, support would have caused. It is carried across the frank exposure of metal structure,· is the ceiling without any attempt at disguise. At especially noticeable in the staircase (fig. 1), the same time, the use of iron in the facade is which rises to the right of an octagonal just as distinctive. With its appearance, Horta vestibule (fig. 2). At its foot stands a cast iron adapted to an elegant townhouse features 110 Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies which otherwise would readily bring to mind stone pillars sculpted with a vaguely Gothic, industrial associations. Found in grilles; vaguely neo-Rococo flavour, rhythmically slender window ledges, and horizontal support punctuate the area to form six windows. On beams, the iron embodies an interesting play top, one has the main floor, where slender on the accepted assumptions which governed metal columnettes correspond to the residential construction. supportive pillars below. These too act to divide the window space, this time into a It has been said that the facade of the Maison series of long, se~mingly upward moving Tassel is less striking than the interiors. In compartments. Al flowing display of· Art fact, if it were not for its ornamental detail, it Nouveau grille work around their bases, acts would not be particularly unusual. to alleviate the general tone of austerity in the Nonetheless, the same linear curves of such facade. Proceeding to the uppermost storey, internal/decorative elements as the stair one finds that the architect has made use of ensemble are plastically reflected in its the projection of the bay so as to create a contours. The building's stone facing seems to curving balcony. The verticals of its railing be imbued with an unprecedented flexibility, terminate the ascendant spring of the iron as it is impress-ively adorned with a subtle columnettes below. In between, volutes of fashioning of profile. An alternation of forged iron provide further hints of soft concave and convex is the result. With the ornamentation for the edifice. With the interplay of light and shadow inherent in this, suppleness of their modelling, Horta creates the architect .shows complete mastery of the another paradox to challenge the accepted work's plastic physiognomy. Flanking the ideas concerning materials, their forms, and centrally located door,4 two large, organically their uses. A similar concept is embodied in inspired volutes appear to spring forth from the pair of gliding stone volutes animating the the body of the wall. Although non-structural, facade on either side of the railing's end. the quiet strength of their elegant curve seems Finally, one reaches the cornice, visually to carry the weight of the gently bowing carried there by the gracile stone uprights window loggia, perfectly inscribed within the which flank the french doors to the centre of structure of the building. It is the first time the the balcony. As its silhouette angles down loggia forms an integral part of the edifice. No over the windows, one notes the low key longer a mere projection,. an appendage sobriety of the decorative mouldings. A grafted onto the surface of the building, it studied harmony is created between the contrasts engagingly with the customary relative asceticism of the stone and the Brussels bay windows, seen in profusion exuberance of the iron. Consequently, the among the neighbouring homes. The loggia understated character of the stone speaks of rises 1 ~ stories within the elevation of the logic and simplicity, while the plasticity of the facade. On either side, a line of thin windows iron celebrates life and growth. is placed. They continue to the top floor where they are reduced to mere slits within the It is impossible to overlook the obvious preponderance of stonework, thus bringing to referenc.es to Classical architectural mind the narrow medieval openings of Gothic vocabulary which the architect chose to castles.

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