L’œuvre architecturale d’Henry van de Velde (08/04/2008)
Henry Clemens Van de Velde (1863–1957) was a Belgian (born in Antwerp) painter, architect and interior designer. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar he could be considered as one of the main founders and representatives of Art Nouveau in Belgium. Van de Velde spent the most important part of his career in Germany and had a decisive influence on German architecture and design at the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1892 he abandoned painting, devoting his time to arts of decoration and interior design (silver- and goldsmith’s trade, chinaware and cutlery, fashion design, carpet and fabric design). His own house, Bloemenwerf in Ukkel, was his first attempt at architecture, and was inspired by the British and American Arts and Crafts Movement. He also designed interiors and furniture for the influential art gallery “L’Art Nouveau” of Samuel Bing in Paris in 1895. This gave the movement its first designation as Art Nouveau. Bing’s pavilion at the 1900 Paris world fair also exhibited work by Van de Velde. Van de Velde was strongly influenced by John Ruskin and William Morris’s English Arts and Crafts movement and he was one of the first architects or furniture designers to apply curved lines in an abstract style. Van de Velde set his face against copying historical styles, resolutely opting for original, new design, banning banality and ugliness from people’s minds.
Van de Velde’s design work received good exposure in Germany, through periodicals like Innen-Dekoration, and subsequently he received commissions for interior designs in Berlin. Around the turn of the century, he designed Villa Leuring in the Netherlands, and Villa Esche in Chemnitz, two works that show his Art Nouveau style in architecture. He also designed the interior of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen (today the building houses the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum) and the Nietzsche House in Weimar.
In 1899 he settled in Weimar, Germany, where in 1905 he established the Grand-Ducal School of Arts and Crafts
Although a Belgian, Van de Velde would play an important role in the German Werkbund, an association founded to help improve and promote German design by establishing close relations between industry and designers. He would oppose Hermann Muthesius at the Werkbund meeting of 1914 and their debate would mark the history of Modern Architecture. Van de Velde called for the upholding of the individuality of artists while Hermann Muthesius called for standardization as a key to development.
During World War I, Van de Velde, as a foreign national, was obliged to leave Weimar (although on good terms with the Weimar government), and returned to his native Belgium. Later, he lived in Switzerland and in the Netherlands where he designed the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. In 1925 he was appointed professor at the Ghent University Institute of Art History and Archaeology, where he lectured architecture and applied arts from 1926 to 1936. He was instrumental in founding in Brussels, in 1926, today’s renowned architecture and visual arts school La Cambre, under the name of “Institut supérieur des Arts décoratifs.”
He continued his practice in architecture and design, which had demarcated itself significantly from the Art Nouveau phase, whose popularity was by 1910 in decline. During this period, he mentored the great Belgian architect, Victor Bourgeois. In 1933 he was commissioned to design the new building for the university library (the renowned Boekentoren). Construction started in 1936, but the work would not be completed until the end of the Second World War. For budget reasons, the eventual construction did not entirely match the original design. For instance, the reading room floor was executed in marble instead of the black rubber Van de Velde originally intended. He was also involved in the construction of the Ghent University Hospital.
He died, aged 94, in Zürich.
Auctions and exhibitions
October 12, 2005 a teapot designed by Van de Velde made €170,000 at a public auction at the Brussels Beaux-Arts auction house – eleven times the opening bid. It is a teapot on a chafing dish, with a wooden handle, resting on an oval basis and made of silver-plated brass. During an Art Nouveau and Design exhibition at the Brussels Cinquantenaire Museum (“Jubilee Park Museum”) in 2005, Henry Van de Velde’s tea set, two china plates and a silver dish were badly damaged in an unfortunate accident. The silver candle stand remained unharmed. The pieces had been given on temporary loan by Krefeld’s Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne and a private collector.
Chair designed for house “Bloemenwerf”, 1895
1895–96: “Bloemenwerf”, Van de Velde’s first private residence, in Ukkel, Belgium
1895: Interior decoration of Siegfried Bing’s art Gallery “Maison de l’art nouveau” in Paris, France
1900–02: Interior of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Germany
1902–03, 1911 (extension): “Villa Esche” in Chemnitz, Germany
1903: Extension and interior decoration of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, Germany
1906–07: Clubhouse of the “Chemnitzer Lawn-Tennis-Club” in Chemnitz (demolished)
1907–08: “Hohenhof”, Mansion for Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, Germany
1907–08: “Haus Hohe Pappeln”, Van de Velde’s private residence in Weimar, Germany
1909–11: “Ernst-Abbe-Denkmal”, Memorial for Ernst Abbe in Jena (in collaboration with the sculptors Max Klinger and Constantin Meunier)
1912–13: Palace for Graf Dürckheim in Weimar, Germany
1913–14: “Werkbund-Theater”, Theatre at the Deutsche Werkbund exhibition in Cologne, Germany
1913–14: “Villa Schulenburg” in Gera, Germany
1913–14: Wohnhaus für den Fabrikanten Dr. Theo Koerner in Chemnitz, Germany
1927–28: “La Nouvelle Maison”, Van de Velde’s private residence in Tervuren, Belgium
1929–31: Home for the elderly of the ‘Minna und James Heinemann-Stiftung’ in Hannover, Germany
1933–35: Polyclinic and “Villa Landing” for Dr. Adriaan Martens in “Astene” near Ghent, Belgium
1933–38: Library of Ghent University with “Boekentoren” in Ghent, Belgium
1936–42: “Technische School”, School building in Leuven, Belgium
1937: Belgian Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition
1937: “Station Blankenberge”, Train station in Blankenberge
1939: Belgian Building for the 1939 New York World’s Fair