Hôtel van Eetvelde

Edmond van Eetvelde, a diplomat who became secretary-general of the Congo Free State, called on Victor Horta to build his town house on the corner of Square Marie-Louise and Avenue Palmerston, in the Squares district. The main house was designed in 1895. Two further phases followed, designed by Horta, who remained in charge of the works at each stage: in 1899, an extension of one bay towards the corner of the avenue, with a ceremonial office opening onto the winter garden, and a rental house on the corner itself; in 1901, a second bay on the other side. In the years after construction, Horta also reworked the hall and the vestibule himself.

The house is also a place of propaganda for the colonisation of the Congo: it displays materials taken from the colony, in particular Congolese woods and ivory, and depicts Congolese fauna and flora as well as the five-pointed star, emblem of the Free State. During van Eetvelde's terms of office, especially after he became sole secretary-general in 1894, mass violence was committed against the Congolese; faced with its public denunciation, he played down its scale.

In 1920, after the death of his wife, van Eetvelde had the architect Arthur Verhelle rework the property: the 1899 annexe, with the office, was detached from the house and joined to no. 2. That same year the house was sold to the Pouppez de Kettenis family, who stayed there for nearly thirty years. The Gas Industry Federation bought it in 1950 and installed offices; in 1965 more offices were fitted into the lightwell. The house was listed in 1976 together with its 1901 annexe. The lightwell was reinstated in 1988 under the direction of the architects Jean Delhaye and Barbara Van der Wee, who restored its walls to their original appearance.

The corner house at no. 2 escaped several replacement schemes. In 1936, after a wave of protests, the City refused a permit to replace it with a block of flats. Meanwhile sold to the architect Jean Delhaye, it was the subject of a new application in 1938, which came to nothing, and in 1957 Delhaye himself put forward a design for a block of flats. In 1958 he chose instead to transform it into his office and family home; it was listed in 1971. The house was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000, together with three other Horta houses: the Tassel and Solvay houses and his own house on rue Américaine. After restoration and renovation work, it opened to the public in 2023.

Horta considered this plan "the boldest" of those he had carried out up to then. The plot is nine metres wide and about 32 long; two volumes, one at the front and one at the back, are linked by a central space: the winter garden, topped by a lightwell. Three parts sit side by side: the service rooms, on the ground floor and under the roof; the family's private apartment, on the second and third floors; and the reception rooms, on the first.

From the entrance, a diagonal approach starts a spiral circulation around the octagonal winter garden. A first flight of stairs leads up to it, at mezzanine level; the second climbs to the first floor, towards the dining room at the back and the drawing room at the front. The hall and the vestibule, relatively dark, contrast with this bright winter garden.

It is crowned by a stained-glass dome carried on 32 ribs and eight metal pillars highlighted with gilded edging. Originally its walls were also in stained glass, which let only a little light through to the long access corridor and the ground-floor service rooms; soon after construction Horta replaced them with green marble panelling and removed the glass pavers that decorated the middle of the octagon. The floor is in green mosaic with orange motifs.

The drawing room receives abundant light through its large windows; its panelling is in green onyx plaques inlaid with gilded bronze, and a metal frame with bevelled glazing opens onto the winter garden. The double-leaf door of the dining room, in mahogany, is fitted with American-glass stained glass showing stylised trees; the room keeps its embossed wall covering in ochre, green and brown, with stylised plants and animals, and two sideboards that Horta created for the house, shown at the Libre Esthétique salon in 1897. In the 1899 annexe, part of no. 2 since 1920, van Eetvelde's former office keeps its original African mahogany furniture, one of the best-preserved sets of furnishings designed by Horta today.

On Avenue Palmerston, the façade of no. 4 has an industrial look: a large oriel of riveted metal beams, in the manner of a curtain wall, over two levels and five bays, carried on three metal brackets and decorated with mosaic spandrels in whiplash lines. The 1899 buildings and the 1901 annexe, by contrast, have elevations in white Euville and Savonnières stone with sculpted details; at the same time as the two annexes, Horta replaced the original two-colour facing of the ground floor and top level of the house with alternating courses of those same stones.

Created for the Art Nouveau year 2023, the LAB·AN is housed in the building. This venue dedicated to promoting Art Nouveau takes a present-day look at this Belgian, Brussels and international heritage, and opens the house to the general public. The non-profit Patrimoine & Culture manages it, as it does the Halles Saint-Géry. Its tours connect the materials that came from the colonisation of the Belgian Congo (exotic wood, ivory) to the context in which they were used.

The LAB·AN opens the house on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, from 10:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 16:30. For a self-guided visit, tickets are bought online; a guided tour is booked by writing to the LAB·AN. The LAB·AN is at 2-4 Avenue Palmerston, on the corner of Square Marie-Louise.