Victor Horta

Victor Pierre Horta was born 6 January 1861 in Belgium, a fervent admirer of French theorist Eugène Viollet-le-Duc whose ideas he reshaped into something entirely new. His Hôtel Tassel in Brussels (1892–93) is often considered the first Art Nouveau house: curving vegetal forms, steel frames, open floor plans, light flooding through skylights and glass. The style traveled — Hector Guimard borrowed it for Paris apartment blocks and the Metro entrances. Horta kept building: the Maison du Peuple (1895–99), the Centre for Fine Arts (1923–29), Brussels-Central station (1913–52), his work growing mor…