Art Nouveau Architecture

Only recently has Art Nouveau architecture ceased to be regarded as a retrogressive interlude between historicism and the Modern Movement, and this largely as a result of the re-evaluation of the role and importance of ornamentation in architecture. This book, the result of over five years of collective research, has arisen in response to the need for an international survey of the work carried out immediately before and after the turn of the century. The period 1895 to 1905 was one of great inventiveness and variety, giving rise to both the curvilinear style seen in the work of Horta and Guimard and the rectilinear style of Mackintosh and Hoffmann which heralded the modern pre-occupation with geometry. The term Art Nouveau is here used to describe both idioms. It was a period which also coincided with the culmination – and inception – of the careers of a number of celebrated masters: Mackintosh, Gaudí, Horta, Guimard, Berlage, Jeanneret, Behrens, D’Aronco, Kotěra, Olbrich, Hoffmann, Wagner, Sullivan, Wright; the roll-call of practitioners speaks for itself. These and other architects who designed in an Art Nouveau…