In our day and age of the tear down it is rare to stumble upon a completely intact dwelling representing an important moment in design. Such is the case of a Secessionist-style villa in Brussels discovered and lovingly preserved by interior designer Jean-Jacques Hervy. Designed by Belgian architect, sculptor and painter Joseph Dierickx in 1924 for Paul-Gustave van Hecke (an intellectual dandy and gallery owner) and his fashionable wife Honorine Schrijver (often referred to as the “Chanel of the North” among Belgian society), the villa’s aesthetic represented a brave new stylistic direction in the emerging world of high style modernism.
The van Hecke’s patronized artists in much the same vein as did the fashionable de Noailles in Paris (see Perfectly Frank). They entertained primarily Surrealist artists, and Honorine was famous for her fashion shows staged on the sweeping staircase of the glamorous entrance hall-reception room by Surrealist artist René Magritte, which features two frosted glass and gilt mosaic-encrusted fountains at either end of three sets of gold-flecked mica doors, and a series wall decorations representing topiary to convey the illusion of an indoor garden. Every aspect of the original design here and elsewhere in the house was meticulously renovated and affectionately respected by Hervy, who has dedicated much of his energy to the preservation of every detail of this particularly rare species of modernism in a city lined with brutish stone monstrosities. If you close your eyes perhaps you can still hear the clinking of cocktail glasses and the sound of Jazz emanating from these very rooms that once entertained the beau-monde of Belgian society in pure modern glamour.
From an archival photograph The Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses (1926) by Max Ernst in the apartment of Paul-Gustave van Hecke in Brussels, around 1930.
Content for this post based on an article written by Babara Stoeltie for the January, 2005, issue of The World of Interiors. Photography by René Stoeltie.
The railings of the staircase and the balcony are amazing ! I don’t think I hane ever seen anything like them.
As always, thank you for bringing them to us.