Tuesday 27 September 2016

wintertuin ou hôtel particulier

Thanks to Messy Nessy Chic for piquing my curiosity with this divinely art nouveau glimpse of the Hôtel Hannon in Brussels, a Hôtel Particulier being a grand, detached townhouse in French. A wealth and successful petro-chemical engineer named Édouard Hannon in 1902 commissioned an architect friend to design him a home in the city. The house was transformed into a showcase for some of the finest art of the period, with fine frescos and mosaics, stained-glass from the Tiffany tradition and Émile Gallé, who contributed lamps, vases and other bric-a-brac. Tragically, the family only were able to reside there a couple of years and the mansion was left to decay, until having purchased the property, the borough opened house as a museum in 1989 after extensive restoration.