This atrium, aside from acting as a point of entry and containing the house’s main stairway, also serves as an ideal venue in which to receive guests – whether just a few casual visitors or a throng gathered for an important occasion. From a comparatively modest entryway, visitors proceed down a small corridor and ascend into a double-height octagonal atrium. It was in solving this dilemma that Horta would create the grand architectural gesture for which the Hôtel van Eetvelde would come to be known. Save this picture! The spatial prominence of the atrium, which also served as a light well and stairwell, is readily apparent in Horta’s original plans for the ground and main levels. It fell to Horta to find a way to break from the established modus operandi and satisfy his client’s dream. Despite their exterior diversity, townhouses in Brussels tended toward virtually identical interior layouts as the vast majority had deep, narrow footprints, the inability to take advantage of natural lighting anywhere other than the front and rear walls of the house made deviation untenable. I have to entertain so I will need a large lounge, at least, and a dining-room as large as you can manage.” This was not as straightforward a directive as Van Eetvelde seemed to believe. The programmatic requirements were, according to Van Eetvelde, “like those of everybody else. It was in the midst of this development boom that Edmond van Eetvelde, the Belgian secretary of the Congo Free State-the Belgian colony in central Africa which quickly became infamous for its human rights abuses-commissioned Victor Horta to design his new townhouse. ImageCourtesy of Flickr user Steve Cadman (licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0) Save this picture! This street front comprises typical Brusselian townhouses: narrow, multilevel, and highly individualistic in their ornamentation.
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