Hôtel Tassel, Art Nouveau townhouse in City of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium
The Hôtel Tassel stands at 6, rue Paul-Emile Janson, a few steps from Avenue Louise in Brussels. Horta joined two brick-and-stone blocks, one on the street and one on the garden, with a glazed steel structure that serves as light shaft and reception space. Its façade has a curved bay window on slender iron columns, green metal railings and a band of round rivets.
Victor Horta built the Hôtel Tassel for the engineer and professor Émile Tassel between 1892 and 1893, on a plot near the Avenue Louise opened in 1864. Horta moved the entrance to the middle of the façade and placed a glazed steel light well at the centre, replacing the dark middle dining room of traditional Brussels town houses. UNESCO listed it in 2000 with three other Horta houses.
The house takes its name from Emile Tassel, the engineer and professor of descriptive geometry who commissioned it. Horta designed the door handles, woodwork, stained-glass windows, mosaic floors and furniture as one scheme, so the decoration follows the same curved line from the iron columns of the facade to the interior. Since 2017 the building has housed a private office.
The house stands at 6, rue Paul-Emile Janson, a few steps from Avenue Louise. It has served as a private office since at least 2017, so the interior is not open to visitors; the facade is seen from the pavement. Look up at the curved bay with its green metal railings and the riveted stone band between the columns.
Horta placed the entrance door in the middle of the façade instead of the traditional side position, moving the corridor to the centre and sacrificing the middle of the house to install a light well. The dining room, formerly dark in Brussels town houses, thus gained daylight.
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