Horta House and Studio (Horta Museum)

On two neighbouring plots on rue Américaine, in Saint-Gilles, 12.5 m wide in all, Victor Horta designed his own house at number 25 between 1898 and 1901 and, at number 23, his architecture office and a sculpture studio. The two buildings were conceived together: the studio's stairwell can also be reached from the house, yet each building keeps its own character.

The house changed during Horta's lifetime: in 1906 the dining room was extended by a small salon opening onto the garden, and the attic floor, reserved for his daughter, received a winter garden and a terrace; the studio gained a third room in 1908. In 1911 Horta had the ground-floor window and grille of the studio taken out to fit a garage door.

After the First World War, on his return from the Americas, Horta put both buildings up for sale and moved to avenue Louise. The two houses were then separated, and the studio became a single-family home. In 1961 the municipality of Saint-Gilles bought the house to turn it into a museum, on the initiative of the architect Jean Delhaye, a former collaborator of Horta. Delhaye carried out a first restoration in 1967; the museum opened in 1969, at first in the house alone, then in the studio in 1973, once the municipality had acquired it. From 1984 to 1987 the garden, divided after the buildings were separated, was recomposed from old documents.

A new restoration campaign began in 1989 under the architect Barbara Van Der Wee. A first phase (1991-1993) reconstructed the ground-floor window of the studio and stabilised the main stairwell; a second restored the studio rooms, the rear façade and the roofs (1994-1995), and finally, in 1998, the stained glass of the lantern and the paintings that adorn the stairs. The house has been listed since 16 October 1963 and, since 30 November 2000, it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing, like the Tassel, Van Eetvelde and Solvay houses.

The whole is conceived as a total work: materials are used in an original way and the structure, left visible, is part of the ornament. The façade of number 25 is in white Euville and Savonnières stone. The ironwork, of remarkable quality, is made of riveted flat bars drawing the whiplash motif of Art Nouveau.

On the street side the house has three levels under a mansard roof, enlivened by an off-centre balcony and oriel. The all-iron balcony is bolted into the ground-floor girder and hung by metal tie rods from the three stone brackets of the oriel. Its floor and the lower part of its railing were originally made of coloured American glass, and the glazed floor continues over the door as a rounded canopy. The railing recalls entwined irises on the tie rods; the oriel carries a terrace whose wrought-iron railing evokes butterfly wings. At the very top, a large skylight cuts through the upper slope of the roof, covered in red tiles, and shelters the lantern of the stairwell. The studio, at number 23, rises three levels under a roof opened up by a skylight; its windows are divided by cast-iron colonnettes with claw-shaped capitals, and on the second floor the window of the drawing office takes up the full width of the façade.

For his own house Horta departed from the traditional Brussels plan: the space is organised around a square stairwell at the heart of the building, which light reaches through a skylight at the top; a service staircase discreetly doubles it at the back. The first two flights, with a mahogany handrail, are in Carrara marble. On the main floor the stair becomes wooden, is no longer enclosed and opens onto the rooms it serves: a large hall serving as a salon on the street side, the dining room at the back. These rooms in a row communicate widely and sit at different levels, which opens up original views through the house. In the dining room, white glazed bricks cover walls and ceiling, basket-handle arcades mark off three small vaults, and plaster bas-reliefs by Pierre-Jean Braecke run along the top of the walls.

Higher up, the flights narrow and give an upward movement to the skylight, a double barrel vault resting on slender metal pillars built into the handrail. Two butterfly-wing mirrors face each other on either side and multiply the space endlessly. The first floor held the couple's private apartment, with a salon and boudoir on the street side, and a bedroom, bathroom and dressing room at the back.

The interior fittings were designed at the same time as the architecture. Heating and lighting blend into the decor: an industrial finned radiator forms a metal pillar at the foot of the stairs, and the light fittings wind around the balusters and the frame of the lantern. Marbles, precious woods, gilded wrought iron, American glass and bevelled glass, decorated with curves or carved arabesques, make up a subtly nuanced polychromy. At the back, from the salon, glass steps lead down to the garden and cover a light well that lights the kitchen-cellar and the cellar.

The house and studio now form the Horta Museum. The dining room keeps its original American-ash furniture and the garden-side salon its original sycamore-maple fittings; other rooms are furnished with pieces from other houses, such as the Dopchie house in Renaix. On the second floor of the studio, a former drawing office holds Horta's collection of plaster casts, and a second tells the story of the building's restoration.

The museum is also a research centre on Horta and Art Nouveau: the architect's personal archives, a collection of plans of his buildings and the library are open to the public by appointment.

The museum is closed on Mondays. It is open from 2 pm to 5.30 pm Tuesday to Friday, and from 11 am to 5.30 pm on Saturday and Sunday; the last admission is at 4.45 pm. Booking a time slot online is compulsory.

The museum occupies numbers 23 and 25 rue Américaine, in Saint-Gilles.