Portrait of Henry Van de Velde, ca. 1926 © Archive Museum voor Sierkunst en Vormgeving, Ghent

In his long career Henry Van de Velde designed no less than four houses for himself and his family. The series began in 1895 with Bloemenwerf (Flower Wharf), a house built in the neighbourhood of Brussels, which Van de Velde explicitly wanted to put forward as a Gesamtkunstwerk. The house was not only filled with works of art, it was also decorated by the designer down to the smallest detail. Flower Wharf first of all had to be an intimate place where art could settle down in life. It was exactly this kind of ideology that Adolf Loos criticised in various texts: >>

Biography born in Antwerp.   1863   began his career as a painter after graduating at the Academy of Fine Arts (Academie voor Schone Kunsten) in Antwerp. Good relations with the avant-garde group Les XX.   1884-93   stopped painting under the influence of Ruskin and Morris, and concentrated on applied art.   1893   started out as an architect with Flower Wharf.   1895   left Belgium for Berlin.   1900   worked in Weimar; director of the new Kunstgewerbesch.   1902-17   after a short stay in Switzerland, worked as an artistic consultant and architect for Mr. And Mrs. Kröller-Müller in the Netherlands.   1920-26   return to Belgium. Director of the Institut Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs (ISAD) in Brussels.   1926   moved to Switzerland.   1947   died in Switzerland.   1957

Portrait of Henry Van de Velde by C. Trefois, ca. 1930 © Maandblad Kunst