Art Nouveau in Brussels
The Art Nouveau movement of architecture and design first appeared in Brussels, Belgium, in the early 1890s, in the architecture and interior design of houses designed by Paul Hankar, Henry van de Velde, and especially Victor Horta, whose Hôtel Tassel was completed in 1893. It began as a reaction against the formal vocabulary of 19th-century European academic art, eclecticism and historicism, and was based upon an innovative use of new materials, such as iron and glass, to open larger interior spaces and provide maximum light; curving lines such as the whiplash line; and other designs inspired by plants and other natural forms.