Hankar House: Paul Hankar’s Art Nouveau Residence and Studio
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.9
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Belgium
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Belgian
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- House
On this page7 sections
History
Hankar House is a historic town house in Belgium, located at 71 Rue Defacqz in Saint-Gilles, Brussels. Paul Hankar designed and built it in 1893 as his personal residence and studio, at a time when Art Nouveau was emerging through asymmetrical compositions, new materials, flowing lines, and plant-inspired decoration. Together with Victor Horta’s Hôtel Tassel, built at the same time, the house is regarded as one of the earliest architectural manifestations of Art Nouveau.
Paul Hankar’s residence and architectural statement
The house marked Hankar’s beginning as an independent architect and expressed his intention to unite architecture with artistic craftsmanship. His approach drew on neo-Renaissance architecture and on the ideas of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, John Ruskin, and William Morris. These nineteenth-century thinkers promoted historically informed design, skilled workmanship, modern materials, and clear architectural expression.
Hankar later used his own house as a model for residences designed for artist friends, including René Janssens, Albert Ciamberlani, Philippe Wolfers, and Léon Bartholomé. In 1895, the French architect and designer Hector Guimard drew the façade. The house was also discussed in the architectural journal L’Émulation, extending attention to Hankar’s work beyond the building itself.
Later history and protection
After Paul Hankar died at an early age, his widow continued to live in the house until financial difficulties forced its sale. In 1932, the building was divided into apartments. Hankar House received legal protection as a historic monument in 1975, and it was formally classified on 26 May of that year.
Remains
Hankar House occupies a narrow plot in a wealthy Brussels neighborhood near Avenue Louise. Its surviving façade has a strongly asymmetrical composition that contrasts with the symmetrical brick and stone buildings associated with the Beaux-Arts and neoclassical architecture prevalent in the surrounding area. The entrance and staircase occupy the eastern third, set half a storey apart from the western two-thirds, where the public rooms are arranged. Inside, the rooms retain a traditional enfilade, a sequence of spaces aligned along a common axis and linked by doorways.
Façade composition and projecting elements
The entrance stands on the right beneath an awning, with paired windows above it lighting the staircase. A ground-floor bow window identifies the living room, while the larger bay windows on the upper levels illuminate the artist’s workshop. On the left, a projecting box-bay window, oriel, rests on substantial stone corbels and brings light to the upper rooms. Its upper section is finished with a balcony beneath a projecting cornice.
Wrought-iron railings on the projecting bay and balconies form curling, stylized floral lines. Curving iron columns support the overhanging cornice, while the stone corbels carry the projecting bay. The façade combines the weight of neo-Renaissance forms and varied masonry with lighter ironwork, sgraffito, and floral decoration.
Materials and color
The façade’s polychromy, meaning the use of multiple colors in architectural design, comes from the combination of red brick, blue stone, Gobertange stone, pink puddingstone, wood, and metal. Color and texture also appear in the mortar, while the wooden cornice was painted. These contrasting materials give the narrow frontage a varied and deliberately composed surface.
Sgraffito decoration
Several sgraffiti decorate the façade. This technique applies layers of differently colored plaster and exposes them by scratching through the surface. A cartouche surrounded by white hydrangeas displays the date 1893. Four small panels beneath the cornice represent Morning, with a bird and horse-chestnut leaves; Day, with a bird and a radiant sun; Evening, with a swallow; and Night, with bats and stars.
Adolphe Crespin produced the mural panels and was engaged for the sgraffito work. Hankar also involved the sculptor René Janssens and the painter Albert Ciamberlani in the artistic treatment of the façade. Cats among nasturtiums appear on the projecting bay, adding another layer of figurative and floral ornament to the building’s exterior.
