Hôtel Solvay: façade

The H�tel Tassel was followed by a series of innovative Art Nouveau buildings in Brussels. In the following year, Horta was commissioned to design a large house for Armand Solvay, son of the famous industrial chemist Ernest Solvay. The H�tel Solvay was perhaps Horta’s most sumptuous private commission and survived complete with its original furniture, which he also designed. The fa�ade is almost symmetrical and is sculptural in quality, with the two end bays projecting in the first and second storeys, subdivided by thin metal colonnettes and transoms; there is elaborate abstract ironwork in the balconies.