Major Town Houses of the Architect Victor Horta
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How it came to be
Victor Horta was one of the first leaders of Art Nouveau. In the Hotel Tassel, completed in 1893 in Brussels for the scientist and professor Emile Tassel, he joined a street wing and a garden wing with a steel-and-glass hall that brought light into the heart of the house. By breaking with the usual deep, narrow layout, it became one of the first buildings in the style.
Horta designed every detail himself, from door handles to stained glass and mosaic floors, and fused the curving ornament with the structure. The approach carried on into the Hotel van Eetvelde, the Hotel Solvay and his own house. The Hotel Solvay, built for Armand Solvay, son of the chemist Ernest Solvay, used costly materials such as marble, onyx, bronze and tropical woods.
Horta's own house and workshop in Saint-Gilles was built from 1898 to 1901 and is now the Horta Museum. The Wittamer family, who bought the Hotel Solvay in the 1950s, preserved it, and it has opened as a museum since 2021. The four houses were inscribed in 2000.
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