The Hotel Tassel in Brussels, built in 1893-1894 and designed by Victor Horta, is considered the first true Art Nouveau building. It featured highly innovative design with its use of modern materials like iron and glass. The narrow symmetrical facade included both classical elements like columns but some columns were made of iron, not stone. Inside, Horta created an open floor plan that filled the rooms with natural light. He designed all interior decor elements to achieve an integrated whole, creating a thoroughly modern visual environment for its occupant. The building is still in use today at 6 Rue Paul-Emile Janson in Brussels, though some modern additions have compromised the original elegance of the facade.

1. HOTEL TASSEL
The Hotel Tassel or Tassel House is a town house built by Victor Horta in Brussels for the Belgian scientist and
professor Emile Tassel in 1893–1894. It is generally considered as the first true Art Nouveau building, because of
its highly innovative plan and its groundbreaking use of materials and decoration. Together with three other town
houses of Victor Horta, including Horta's own house and atelier it was put on the 'UNESCO World Heritage List'
in 2000. It is located at 6, Rue Paul-Emile Jansonstraat in Brussels.
The front facade of Hotel Tassel
ABOUT HOTEL TASSEL OR TASSELS HOUSE
Tassel’s house demonstrates many of the variety of elements that went into making Art Nouveau. These design
elements involve an alternate perspective on historical styles, an arts and crafts sensibility, and the modern
materials of iron and glass.
Though Horta did not see this building as a total break with the past, the stone exterior includes consoles,
moldings, and columns of classical architecture, he did develop new ways of building. Instead of stone, the
columns are of iron. Also, Horta created the building’s façade as smooth and fluid, unlike the articulated planes of
classical buildings.
In the interior, there is the delicacy and curving “feminity” of a rococo drawing room. But the detailing was
alloyed by the modernity in the choice of materials and their interpretations as plant forms. The iron columns
sprout slender iron strips to support the floor above. Material are not disguised but clearly visible, each decorative
in their own right. Materials use by Horta emphasizes rather than conceal the Tassel structure.

2. Horta’s organization of interior space was quite
innovative. Two light wells filled the rooms with
natural light, and the floor plans had a fluid and
asymmetrical flow. To achieve an integrated design
whole, Horta instead on designing all interior décor
elements. The stair rail and painted wall decoration,
the mosaic flooring, light fixtures, hardware and door
handles are elements of his total design.
Such a complete visual environment was a thoroughly
modern design statement, one that placed
contemporary man in a fully contemporary setting.
The building is still in use as a headquarters for a firm
at 6, Rue Paul-Emile Janson, Brussels. Sadly, the
current tenant, a private company, has decided to
place commercial stickers in some of the Tassel House
windows, thus destroying the elegance of the total
facade.
The entrance of the Hotel Tassel (left)
The famous staircase in Hotel Tassel
(Right)

3. DESIGN ELEMENTS
1. The narrow, symmetrical front facade
Built for the Belgian scientist Edmond Tassel, this building is considered by some scholars to be the first Art
Nouveau building in Brussels. It is certainly Horta’s first mature work in this style. Horta made a break with the
past here by using stone and the modern material, metal, in domestic architecture. The modernity of the Horta’s
town house is also signaled by the extensive use of glass, where the window sizes may indicate the function of the
interiors.
The facade includes classical elements like moldings and columns but here some of the columns are iron, not
stone, and the entablature is metal, complete with exposed rivets. In addition, this town house has features that
would become characteristic of Horta’s domestic architecture:
- an open floor plan;
- a use of natural light;
- a unity of architecture, interior decoration, and furniture.
A large bay window, extending over two
stories, dominates the front façade. While the
entrance is shaded by the classical overhanging
lintel with enormous brackets, the rest of the
central bay is glazed and features the lightest
and most slender of metal supports.

4. 2. The Mezzanine floor
Tassel’s smoking room lay behind these windows with the small stone columns with tendrils gripping the iron
lintel above and the base below. The exposed rivets seem part of the decorative program.

5. 3. The central curved bay with details of the bow window
The bowing forward of the entire central bay has parallels with the linear curves within. Apparently, the interior is
even more striking in its use of linear interior architecture as well as curvilinear decoration on walls, stairways and
floors.

6. 4. The ground floor and entrance