On the work of Henry van de Velde

Jason Trujillo | Spring 2012

The career of Henry van de Velde coincides with a dynamic and transformative period within world history. The technology spawned by the Industrial Revolution was well established and its effects more fully realized. European nations were experiencing unification, historical territories were in flux, and international tensions were growing. Such fundamental change resulted in the evolution of social paradigms. In many ways these social changes are reflected through architectural design. Henry Van de Velde was originally trained as a painter, yet went on to pursue architectural and interior design. Van de Velde’s early work in the style of Art Nouveau won him much acclaim. His work was influential to the extent that many regard him, along with Victor Horta, as the principle figures of the Belgian Art Nouveau movement. Van de Velde’s close association with the decorative nature of Art Nouveau, however, did not carry over to his later work around the time of World War I. Instead, Van de Velde pursued the starker, more ornament-void Modern style. Both phases of Van de Velde’s career are linked by two fundamental principles: rationalism and the ability for the built environment to serve as an impetus for social progression. Van de Velde believed that artistic expression should be applied based on logic and not the result of arbitrary application. He held that structural honesty existed as the underlying principle behind good design. Otto Wagner once said “nothing that is not practical can be beautiful.” Van de Velde echoes this sentiment as he writes, “The character of all my craft and ornamental work is derived from a single source: from reason, from reasonableness of being and appearance. / … / I am trying to find a new basis, on which we intend to create a new style; as the germ of this style I see before me one thing for which I must stare: to create nothing which has no reasonable grounds for existing” (Sembach 1989, 9).

The other underlying principle guiding Van de Velde’s work is the ability for design to improve its users’ daily lives. Like the Bauhaus school of the 1920’s, Van de Velde practiced architecture “because he believed that only in this way could he contribute to the revival of art as a vital force that beautified and ennobled daily life” (James-Chakraborty 2006, 30). Similarly, Sembach writes that Van de Velde was primarily concerned with rescuing the “modern world from its own ugliness” (Sembach 1989, 9). It was these two principles – rationalism and architecture as social progression - that would contribute to Van de Velde’s stylistic change later in his career.

There is a stark contrast between Van de Velde’s two stylistic periods. His early career made heavy use of the Art Nouveau style. One such example of his early work is the design of his own residence in Belgium, the Villa Bloemenwerk (fig. 1 & 2). James-Chakraborty writes, “Here he created a portrait of an artist deeply attached to late-nineteenth-century standards of bourgeois comfort and at the same time in rebellion against the ways in which that comfort was conventionally expressed” (James-Chakraborty 2006, 30-31). The villa’s façade is an interesting mix of Art Nouveau details and Tudor repetition.

The architectural facades of Van de Velde’s early work often appear far more subdued than his contemporaries practicing in the Art Nouveau style. The work van Victor Horta, Van de Velde’s fellow countryman, reveals much more decorative and organic exterior form. The rich ornament and organic form of Van de Velde’s work is more apparent in his design of interiors. One of Van de Velde’s most recognizable pieces is his design for a desk circa 1899 (fig. 3). Like the work of Jacques Gruber, the form of Van de Velde’s desk is driven by the continuity of the line. The functional nature of the design is also clearly reflected through desk’s form. In his analysis of the desk, Sembach writes, “Beautiful in a highly individual way, it always has greater significance than mere aesthetic balance. Every detail can also be explained in terms of purpose. The curve of the desk top corresponds to the outstretched arm of the user; the three-dimensional work on the rear edge serves both as reinforcement and as a place for writing utensils” (Sembach 1989, 10).

Despite the success of his early work, Van de Velde abandoned the curvilinear and ornamental nature of Art Nouveau surrounding the start of World War I. This stylistic change was brought about by the slowing momentum of the Art Nouveau movement. Greenhalgh writes, “…Art Nouveau was a dynamic but unstable compound, a set of combinations and antagonisms, collectively struggling to express the idea of the new in varied situations across Europe and the United States at a time when it was not at all clear how the new was to be expressed” (Greenhalgh 2000, 430). Greenhalgh goes on to write the fallout in the decline of the Art Nouveau movement would yield the Art Deco style and the Modern movement. The Modern movement, as Greenhalgh writes, would concern itself with the continuation of social progress and elimination of irrational ornament. On the contrary, the Art Deco style would emphasize eclecticism and ornament as a driving force within design. It is because of the developing principles inherent within the Modern movement I believe influenced Van de Velde to abandon the ornamental nature of Art Nouveau.

A comparison between the Belgian Pavilions at Paris’s Exposition Universalle (one designed by Victor Horta in 1925 (Figure 4) and the other by Van de Velde in 1937)(Figure 5), provide an interesting insight into the diverging principles of the two styles. Horta’s conservative design employs “Classical language…and dedicated to the virtues of stability, using the Classical heritage to describe the nature of authority” (Greenhalgh 2000, 431). Van de Velde’s design some 12 years later is far more radical. The Pavilion of 1937 is void of any historical references and driven by social transformation.

Van de Velde’s adherence to Modern principles can be seen in his design of the Nouvelle residence (1927-1928)(Figures 6 & 7). The building’s facade, like the design of his desk a decade earlier, is driven by a linear continuity and functional necessity. There is no ornament besides the form of the building itself.

What makes Henry van de Velde’s approach to architecture significant is that it foreshadows the Modern movement established by the Bauhaus, Deutscher Werkbund, and the many Modernist architects that followed. Van de Velde’s work ushered in an era of rational design that would form the basis of architectural design for decades to come.

Figure 1

Figure 3 Figure 4

Figure 2

Figure 7

Figure 5 Figure 6

Bibliography

Greenhalgh, Paul. “A Strange Death….” In Art Nouveau: 1890-1914, edited by Paul Greenhalgh, 429-436. London: V & A Publishers, 2000.

Haddad, Elie G. “On Henry van de Velde’s Manuscript on Ornament.” Journal of Design History 16, no. 2 (2003): 119-138.

James-Chakraborty, Kathleen. Bauhaus Culture: From Weimar to the Cold War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Sembach, Klaus-Jurgen. Henry van de Velde. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989.