HENRY VAN DE VELDE

FURNITURE DESIGN
Assignment-
3

BY
A.LAKSHMI SWETHA
M.ARCH ID 2ND SEM
 Henry van de velde (3/4/1863-25/10/1957)

Henry Clemens Van de Velde

was a Belgian Flemish painter,
architect and interior designer.

Together with Victor Horta

and Paul Hankar he could be
considered one of the main
founders and representatives
of Art Nouveau in Belgium.
• Education: Royal Academy of Fine Arts
• Period: Neo-impressionism

Van de Velde spent the most

important part of his career
in Germany and had a
decisive influence on
German architecture and
design at the beginning of
the 20th century.
• Van de Velde was born in Antwerp, where he studied
painting under Charles Verlat at the academie des
Beaux-arts,antwerp (1882-84) and with painter Carolus
Duran,paris (1884-85).
• He worked as a painter & interior decorator in atwerp
& brussels, 1885-94.
• He produced his first architectural work in
brussels,1894 i.e., he built his house for himself
("Bloemenwerf").
• He designed every detail. As he never studied
architecture and he was paying for his house, he could
feel free from the old styles more than other architects.
Time line
1889: In 1889 he became a member of the Brussels-based artist
group "Les XX".
1894: Henry van de Velde married Maria Sèthe in 1894.
1895: Henry van de Velde also designed interiors and furniture for
the influential art gallery "L'Art Nouveau" of Samuel Bing
in Paris in 1895. the shop from which Art Nouveau took its
name.
1910: He continued his practice in architecture and design, which
had demarcated itself significantly from the Art Nouveau
phase, whose popularity was by 1910 in decline.
1926: He was instrumental in founding in Brussels, in 1926,
today's renowned architecture and visual arts school La
Cambre, under the name of "Institut supérieur des Arts
décoratifs."
1933: In 1933 he was commissioned to design the new building
for the university library (the renowned Boekentoren).
Bloemenwerf
• The early years of Henry van de Velde’s
career, until he was 30, were spent as a
painter then as an interior decorator.
• As a painter he was much influenced by
the neo-impressionists,especially Seurat
& Van Gogh.
• When he turned to interior decoration he
designed almost everything for home
from tea-cups to furniture.
FURNITURE DESIGNS BY
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Henry van de Velde, table, 1898-99, maple;
Hessische Landesmuseum, Darmstadt.
Henry van de Velde, detail of Fig. 7
Henry van de Velde, desk, 1897, oak;
MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna.
Art Nouveau furniture designed by by Van de Velde
Armchair by Henry Van de Velde
in Art Nouveau.
• He was associated with the beginnings of Art
Nouveau ,which was essentially the search for a
contemporary non-historical style.
• The linear patterns so conspicuous in Art Nouveau
designs were also distinctive feature of much of van de
Velde’s furniture, decoration and architecture, but he
made an effort to link them with natural forms and
with sense of structure.
• His association of linear rythms with structure and
lines of force is seen in his staircase designs &
furniture, as in many of his early houses and in
Folkwang museum at Hagen.
Stair case in
Folkwang museum
Hagen.
Van de Velde. Entrance
Hall Folkwang
Museum,
Hagen (1902)