During 1894 till' 1898, Belgian architect Victor Horta was working on the building for the family of chemist and industrial magnate Ernest Solvay, actually his son ordered this project, because he wanted to build a house as a present to his wife. This house was called Solvay and it is located in Brussels, Belgium.
As long as the family was wealthy, it was quite good for Horta, because he was not under the pressure of budget, he was free to create, free in his ideas and also in materials.
This house is a great modernism building. It is amazing from many points. Firstly, the outside, it is 5-floor building with beautiful facade (you can see it on the first picture, on the right top side of the page). Actually, the facade is a little bit concaved, this makes it look wavy and free, as if it was real, I can even feel the movement of this house. Also, the balcony creates dancing feeling for the house, because of its curvy decoration lines. However, my the most favourite thing of the outside of the house is the door (you can see it on the second picture, in a mid of the right side of the page). I really like how this massive wooden door looks – so playful, because of organic shapes on it. There are some ornaments, which remind of flowers or leaves made out of steel, it looks wonderful, and for me these steel floral elements symbolise luxury, because even the fact that the doors are made of wood and flowers of other, stronger material, show their powerful and rich nature. Actually, I think that flowers and other organic ornaments are quite interesting and unusual way of showing off, and it is not bad, it is catching interest of people and it is totally great. Moreover, there is also some organic shape, on the wall of building, which is near the door, this shape slightly reminds me of oak branches and leaves (you can see it on the second picture, in a mid of the right side of the page). Oak symbolises safety, and I think that these ornaments are exactly near the door to show that the wealthiness of this house is in safety, and not only wealthiness, the whole house is in safe.
The inside of the house is also interesting (you can see it on the picture on the bottom, left side of the page). First and, I think, really important thing is that this house is full of light. It is great, because when house is full of day light it makes atmosphere inside happy and cheerful. Victor Horta designed every detail in Solvay House. I really like it, because everything is so accurately thoughtful. He designed everything from carpets and table wears to furniture. As long as budget was not a problem for architect, he used expensive materials for the interior and decoration detail. He used marble, onyx, bronze and different kinds of wood. You can really feel the atmosphere of wealth and power of this house through the materials of interior and also with the help of light.
There are so many interesting objects, designed by Victor Horta, inside of this house, but the one, which grabbed my attention from the first sight was heating system, or a fireplace (you can see it on the picture on the bottom, right side of the page). Its shape is so unusual, it is absolutely out of standard of building heating systems at houses. It is really beautiful example of modernism furniture. For me, it looks real, because of its curvy lines, it seems that this object will start dancing right now at the moment. It also has organic shape and some ornaments, which remind of leaves, maybe even oak leaves, which mean protection and safety. Actually, this object gives such a peaceful atmosphere, but at the same time, it does not let you forget about richness of this house, I would even say royality. All in all, I think that I would love to try to spend a cold winter day in this bright house, seating near this kind of fireplace with my family or just reading a book, to feel this atmosphere for real.
There are so many interesting objects, designed by Victor Horta, inside of this house, but the one, which grabbed my attention from the first sight was heating system, or a fireplace (you can see it on the picture on the bottom, right side of the page). Its shape is so unusual, it is absolutely out of standard of building heating systems at houses. It is really beautiful example of modernism furniture. For me, it looks real, because of its curvy lines, it seems that this object will start dancing right now at the moment. It also has organic shape and some ornaments, which remind of leaves, maybe even oak leaves, which mean protection and safety. Actually, this object gives such a peaceful atmosphere, but at the same time, it does not let you forget about richness of this house, I would even say royality. All in all, I think that I would love to try to spend a cold winter day in this bright house, seating near this kind of fireplace with my family or just reading a book, to feel this atmosphere for real.
Bibliography:
Some additional resources, which helped me to develop more the topic
- The Horta Museum Official Web page: http://www.hortamuseum.be
- Dissertation on topic “Allegoric symbols of the floral motives compositions of architecture”, by Russian Doctor of History and Art E.K.Blinova, 2011
- Book “Flowers in Legends and Myths”, by Russian writer N.F.Zolotnitskiy, 1913
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