Becoming an Art Nouveau expert

I already wrote here about my Art Nouveau discoveries of Brussels during the great Art Nouveau and Art Deco Biennale, and after exploring various sites in Schaerbeek, I spent another weekend discovering Art Nouveau gems in Ixelles and Etterbeek.

On Saturday, I started with the ultimate example of Art Nouveau, Victor Horta's Hôtel Solvay in Avenue Louise. The building is nowadays a listed UNESCO world heritage site together with Horta's Hôtel Tassel (see below), Hôtel van Eetvelde and Horta Museum. 

The interior of the house is once again fantastic: in Horta's style, stained glass windows bring light to the house, walls are beautifully decorated and all details are carefully executed.

I continued to another UNESCO site not far away in Rue Paul-Emile Janson, where Horta designed in 1893 Hôtel Tassel. The interior of this building was completely destroyed in the 1970s, but is now renovated to look like the original. 

My last destination on Saturday was Maison Blerot in Rue de Belle-Vue, in a street where you have a row of buildings designed by the Art Nouveau architect Ernest Blerot (look for his signature on the facade). 

Compared to Horta, Blerot's style was a bit more romantic with more flowers and animals used in the decorative patterns. Blerot constructed over 70 houses in Brussels and I think I need to go and discover some of them in the neighborhood of Saint-Boniface soon.

On Sunday I continued my Art Nouveau weekend with yet another Horta building close to Sablon, Maison Frison. It's a house that I've walked past many times, but I have never paid any attention to its dirty facade (see below, it's the one with "for rent" sign). Indeed, the facade is not spectacular, but the interior has a beautiful winter garden of true Horta style.

One of the highlights of the Biennale was, without a doubt, Maison Cauchie in Etterbeek, close to Parc Cinquantanaire. This is where I finally understood the technique of "sgraffito", which is used to make the decorative paintings in many Art Nouveau facades. It consists of two layers of plaster of which the bottom one is dark. When the plaster is still wet, the artists carves the lines of the image on the wall, revealing the darker layer. Then, as in the fresco style, the wet paint is coloured. 

Paul Cauchie and his wife Caroline were masters of the sgraffito style and on the facade of their house you can admire their skills. The building has a well-earned place in the secret list of "The 5 most striking Art Nouveau houses in Brussels".

My last visit was in Parc Leopold (No. 322 in the list of "The 5 most remarkable places in the Eruopean Quarter"), the Bibliothèque Solvay, behind the European Parliament. 

The story of the Solvay library is super interesting. Ernest Solvay (father of Armand Solvay who commissioned Hôtel Solvay) was a rich industrialist who was very keen on supporting education, science and research.  He founded five private institutes, one of which was the institute of sociology, an academic field close to Solvay's heart. 

This building was constructed to only around 10 top students of sociology. They had a beautiful library in the middle of the building for their use and their individual offices were furnished with Chesterfield furnitures. Not bad for sociologists! With the help of the sociologists, Ernest Solvay himself conducted analyses on workers' well-being in his factories. Oh boy, I wish we had more rich industrialists like him in the world today.

Later in the 20th century, the institute became part of the University of Brussels, and finally in 1981 the library was no longer used. Squatters moved in and destroyed the interior of the place completely in the following years. It was only in the end of the 1980s when an architecture student got interested in the place and urged politicians to save and protect it. 

The shameful story got a happy ending as the student later was in charge of renovating the building. It is now used for various events and concerts, so it is possible to see the beautiful stained glass windows. 

Art Nouveau in Brussels - the beauty is in the details

After summer holiday (which seems like ancient history already) I have had some difficulties in enjoying life in Brussels. After spending time with friends and family in Finland and making little visits to fabulous cities like London, Paris, Copenhagen and Berlin (all in one month which was definitely a bit too much!), returning to Brussels was hard. 

I know that I have started post-holiday period with a wrong attitude, so I'm now consciously trying to appreciate the city. After all, I'm halfway through my contract here, so I need to make the most out of my time here - otherwise I would regret it.

Beautiful glass decoration over an entrance door.

With a beautiful sunny autumn weather I try to enjoy the pretty little things in the city and there are plenty of them (it's not always easy in Brussels to see the beauty, you have to pay attention). A few weeks ago I was dog sitting a colleague's dog for a weekend and this gave me a fantastic opportunity to slowly stroll around in my neighborhood and expand my knowledge of the Schaerbeek commune in which I live. 

Schaerbeek doesn't always have the best reputation and I myself wanted first to live in cool places like St. Catherine or Ixelles, but now I've learnt to appreciate the architectural beauty of the commune. There are quite many interesting places to visit here, especially around the neighborhood of the imposing city hall in Place Collignon and pretty Parc Josaphat.

These are the details you find in so many buildings if you just look up and around. Makes life so much nicer, doesn't it.

Even more extensive strolling took place this weekend as I had bought a weekend pass for the Brussels Art Nouveau and Art Deco Biennale. It's a truly fantastic way to visit some of the buildings that would otherwise be closed to visitors and in general get interesting information on this famous period of Brussels architecture. (It's popular among the locals, but I would even recommend tourists to plan their visit so that they can participate.)

On Saturday I started with the famous Maison Autrique in Chaussée de Haecht 266, designed by Victor Horta in 1893 as his first work. This was the start of the golden period of Art Nouveau! The house was carefully renovated ten years ago and our wonderful guide gave us an interesting tour around the house. This building is unsurprisingly No. 238 on my secret list of "The 5 finest Art Nouveau Buildings open to public in Brussels". 

It's quite funny to find this architectural gem here because the street is the heart of the Turkish community with many brightly colored restaurant signs that hardly valorize the building.

Horta and Professor Autrique were both Freemasons and the facade of the building includes some of the Freemason symbols like triangles and the use of number three in various ways.

I continued to another beautiful house designed by Horta, Hôtel van Eetwelde of which I have written here earlier. This time I had the opportunity to see the gorgeous interior of the building (unfortunately no photos were allowed). 

Wall paper in the Quaker House.

My last visit on Saturday was to the close-by Quaker House in Square Ambiorix. While I have walked by the building quite often I have rarely paid much attention to it. It was designed by George Hobé at the turn of the 20th century and bought by the Quakers in 1985. Outside is not much of interest in my opinion, but the interior was pretty (unfortunately here our guide wasn't very knowledgeable and spoke very bad English).

Hôtel Cohn-Donnay and the Restaurant De Ultieme Hallucinatie.

On Sunday I made a great visit to the heart of Schaerbeek and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode to streets I've never taken. Inspired by my new Art Nouveau book, I carefully looked around me and up to the buildings along the streets and indeed, there were so many beautiful details in the houses. 

While the overall picture might be a bit chaotic with all the different styles, you can enjoy of many little beautiful things if you just care to take the time (this is why walking with a dog is fantastic, you really have the time to contemplate your surroundings).

The chess corner in Hôtel Cohn-Donnay. Paul Hamesse designed every detail.

Unfortunately in the 1980s the garden was covered and this indoor terrace was built. Art Nouveau windows on the bar were removed but luckily at least the wooden part was conserved (originally the arch served as a covered path to the music salon at the back of the garden).

I started at Hôtel Cohn-Donnay at Rue Royale 316 very close to the byzantine style church of Royale Sainte-Marie. Hôtel Cohn-Donnay was already built in 1841 (before the Art Nouveau movement) in a neoclassical style. Only in the early 20th century when the Cohn-Donnay family moved in, Paul Hamasse, a student of famous Art Nouveau architect Paul Hankar, transformed the interior into Art Nouveau style. 

The place nowadays houses a beautiful restaurant and a cat café, which is really an underestimation of the potential of the beautiful house. Well, the cats were cute, but eating with cats on the table waiting to attack the food was not very relaxing.

I continued my tour to see two more unknown buildings: one quite eclectic house by Franz Van Ophem in Rue Renkin 33 and another one of more neo-renaissance style by Frans Hemelsoet in Avenue Princesse Elisabeth 22.

Maison Van Ophem built in 1890.

 Beautiful window in Maison Van Ophem.

Both of these building are now privately owned and transformed into apartments. In the Maison Hemelsoet we could visit one of the apartments that the owners had renovated themselves to resemble the original style of 1902. I didn't really like the quite opulent style of the neo-renaissance, and while the facade of the house was Art Nouveau style, you couldn't find the influence inside anymore. 

It is worth knowing that Hemelsoet had made the building with many different influences to show his clients what he is able to do, like Maison Van Ophem, it was kind of a portfolio of the architect's skills.

 Maison Hemelsoet built in 1902.

More to come next weekend when I continue my visits to another six places.

New discoveries in London: Serpentine Gallery

It's been a while since I last went to London. Too long, I now discovered.

I don't know if the city has changed, or I have changed, or I have just previously visited the touristy places, but this time I really fell in love with the city.

Exciting art galleries, beautiful people, great street markets, cool cafés, vegetarian food, hipsters creating nice urban activities - oh, I need to go soon again.

One new discovery was the Serpentine Gallery at the Kensington Garden. For fifteen years, they have invited an architect to create a pavilion outside the gallery. In the past, there has been a lot of famous names who have participated, Zaha Hadid, Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Gehry and Ai Weiwei to name but a few.

This time it was a Spanish architect duo selgascano. I let the pictures of the pretty colorful pavilion speak for themselves.

It was perhaps easy to fall in love with London just on this Saturday as the weather was great, hot and sunny. However, the pavilion was more like a greenhouse. Unbearable to stay long inside. But I'm sure that on a typical grey London day, this pavilion will bring a lot of joy to the people visiting it.

Jungle trip with the tram 44

What a ride! 

You jump on an old tram at the underground station at Montgomery, west of Parc Cinquntanaire in Brussels, and soon you are following Avenue de Tervuren through Parc de Woluwe and Parc de Tervuren. 

It is great fun to take the tram through beautiful and superbly green Tervuren forest. At moments, the tram is riding through green alleys, or more like lush tunnels, and you soon forget the grey city behind you.

25 minutes tram trip takes you through green forests and parks.

Obviously, the trip is recommend by my 500 Brussels secrets guide. It features in the list of "The 5 best trips on tram and bus", No. 291: Tram 44. A tram ride might sound a bit weird tourist or Sunday activity, but this is a ride you should do at least once in Brussels.

On the way, you might have a quick glimpse of the luxurious private house called Stoclet House in Avenue de Tervuren. It is also No. 232 on the list of "The 5 best UNESCO world heritage sites". Its architecture represents the Vienna Secession and it is considered a masterpiece of its Austrian architect. Quite gorgeous and weird, but hard to see well from the street (and you definitely need to get off the tram if you care to have a closer look).

Art Nouveau at Square Ambiorix

Even though there are no visible traces here so far, I've been following my "500 hidden secrets of Brussels" new year resolution really well. Let me present you a few examples that can actually be found on my way to work.

No. 228: Maison Saint-Cyr, one of the 5 most striking art nouveau houses in Brussels.

It needs to be said that the Instagram square format doesn't do justice to this amazing art nouveau piece at Square Ambiorix as it is very tall building but only 4 metres wide. It was designed by Gustave Strauven in 1900. The light green iron decorations are beautiful and I can actually remember the building already from my first visit to Brussels in 2001. 

Unfortunately, the gate is locked with a big padlock and it seems that the building has been empty for a quite a long time already - what a pity. (Check out the blue sky, evidence that it's not always raining here...)

Villa Germaine, one of the cutest brick facades (outside the official 500 list).

Villa Germaine, also at Square Ambiorix (or more correctly at Avenue Palmerston) is actually not on my Brussels 500 -list. But it is a pretty building close to Maison Saint-Cyr. Indeed, while Brussels is not often regarded as a very charming city (and personally, I'd agree that it is not), it has some amazing pieces of architecture scattered around if you just have the patience to look up and around - don't get that umbrella on the way. Often a gorgeous art nouveau facade is squeezed between some awful buildings or the facade is covered with a lot of dirt, but it is worthwhile to look up!

Villa Germaine, built in 1897, is actually of an eclectic style and not so much of an art nouveau building. But if you do an art nouveau tour at the square, don't miss this one either.

A bit further down from Villa Germaine is this beauty by Victor Horta.

No. 235: Hotel van Eetvelde, one of the best UNESCO world heritage sites in Brussels.

It actually took me a while to notice this building at Avenue Palmerston and only later I happened to find it on my 500 list and read that it is designed by the most famous art nouveau architecte Victor Horta in 1895. Van Eetvelde who commissioned the house and lived there, was a secretary general of Congo, bringing in mind where the money for the construction of the late 19th century Brussels was coming from... 

In this website, where you can find descriptions of Brussels' architectural patrimony (even my home is mentioned on the website!!), you can also see what kind of treasures this facade hides. Luckily there are some places in Brussels, where you can also enter the buildings and have a closer look at the art nouveau design. Musée Horta, Horta's own home, is a good example. 

There are three other Unesco sites by Horta in Brussels (including the museum). They are all listed in my "hidden secrets" - if you can call a Unesco world heritage site a hidden secret, but still. Brussels is a great city for art nouveau fans, at the turn of the 19th century, the city was the heart of  art nouveau style and Horta its foremost guru. Around a thousand art nouveau town houses were built that time, while today half of them exist. Plenty to do for Sunday strolls...

So, when in Brussels, keep your eyes open - but be careful of dog shit as well!

Glimpses of St. Petersburg

It's almost embarrassing to tell that I only now had my first trip to Russia and to St. Petersburg, the wonderful city only 3,5 hours by train from Helsinki. Well, me and my sisters, with whom I visited the city, are more than happy that we finally managed to do the trip. Here are some photos to illustrate why. 

It seems that the renovations made in the city for its 300th birthday have changed the city dramatically from the Leningrad years when my father visited the city and wrote in a post card: "Leningrad is awful and the food is bad." St. Petersburg surprised us only positively (even though my expectations were high) and in so many levels: architecture, people, security, food. I think it could become my second biennial travel destination. It's funny, I should say so because hitherto my other biennial destination has beenVenice and it is not seldom that one thinks of the Venetian canals when in St. Petersburg (but otherwise the resemblances end there).

                         

The city is full of history, stories we were reading about when at school. Suddenly I saw all those names of different tsars and wars in my guide book (sadly, those stories already a bit blurred since my school years). Above is for example the church of Our Saviour on the Blood built on the very spot where revolutionaries murdered Emperor Alexander II in 1881. That also affected the history of Finland, then part of Russia, as Alexander II had been a kind ruler towards the Finns unlike his follower.

I have always thought that there is something magic about the tsars of Russia. But only in St. Petersburg I understood how powerful and rich they had been, how exaggerated in gold was their style,  how separated from the real world they must have been in their numerous palaces, and how they probably set their own sad destiny because of all this. The bolshevik revolution didn't bring up a democratic republic like in France and maybe that's why the killed Romanov family has preserved some of the fascination and even empathy.

The Bronze Horseman: Peter the Great founded the city in 1703. The granite underneath the statue weighs 1500 tons and was carried from 20km away to this place. It is one of the biggest blocks ever moved by humans without machines, it took 400 men and 9 months.

Here is the huge Hermitage Museum, or Winter Palace, seen from the palace square (above) and from the top of the St. Isaac's Cathedral (below). I had some ambitions when we went inside to the museum but after 2 hours I gave up; the never-ending corridors and rooms after rooms exhausted me and my sisters. It was the hopelessness of never getting even around the entire building that made me more desperate than a hurting back. We decided to focus on the 19th-20th century art only. Even this collection was huge but I made some good discoveries, like Kees van Dongen (see above the lovely green lady that I also bought as a poster). After this, we didn't even bother to walk all across the huge building to see some da Vinci and Rembrandt etc., they were simply too far away. Indeed, the museum is one of the biggest in the world, its collection has more than 3 million art works and the best of them are exhibited in the 350 rooms of the Winter Palace. The palace in itself is also worth seeing.

Here's another view from the St. Isaac's Cathedral, the massive cathedral that can accomodate more than 14000 people and took 40 years to build. The views from the golden cupola (see also below) all around the city were amazing, but the inside of the church is not of great interest. The same goes, by the way, for the interior of the Blood church that is much more spectacular from the outside. 

Some places in St. Petersburg reminded me of Paris, like this pretty square below.

Some others could have been in Helsinki. I think this one below has many similarities with Kruununhaka, Helsinki.

Obviously, we mostly walked around in the most touristic areas of the city, so I cannot say anything about how the common Russians live - or any Russians, after all, I only saw palaces... The centre is not in impeccable state in many places but it is surprisingly clean. However, I don't believe it would continue like this in the suburbs. Unfortunately, three days was hardly enough to see even the main sights of the city, so the more sociological tour for inspecting living conditions and the crazy inequalities of Russia will be on the to do list of my next trip.

In St. Petersburg you cannot but wonder what would have happened to the city without socialism.  What kind of a country Russia would be now? After all, the city has only re-emerged as a major cultural city since the beginning of the 2000s when it went through a monumental face-lift.

After the revolution, the architecture also changed remarkably; below is an example of the Soviet constructivism. It stands out as the whole centre is quite harmonious and mostly consists of classical architecture from the 18th and 19th century. At the same time, the main street Nevsky Prospekt was largely preserved in its historical form as communism didn't offer commercial reasons to dismantle old and to replace it by some new architectural catastrophes.

Reading: David Benioff, City of Thieves.