Propriété Stoclet – Avenue de Tervueren 279
Classified by the ‘Arrêté Royal’ of March, 30th 1976.
Private residence realised by the Viennese architecte Joseph Hoffman for the Belgian banker Adolphe Stoclet. Living in Vienna, Stoclet was very impressed by the work of the “Wiener Werkstätte” (workshop founded in 1903 by Hoffman and Moser to build, decorate and equip houses entirely by joining the efforts of artists and craftsmen.)
A. Stoclet appointed J. Hoffman to conceive, to fit out and to decorate his residence. Constructed between 1905 and 1911, it is not only original due to its architecture, but due to the furniture, the decoration, the dishes and to all sorts of accessories, which have been created by the artists of the “Wiener Werkstätte” to suite the style of the residence, as well. Being an expression of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau), the exterior architecture features a rigorous sense of proportion. The vertical elements, such as the tower, the projecting portico, the projecting part on the left cut across the horizontal plane. The main façade is oriented towards a garden that was created according to similar ideas. The bronze statue of Athena was sculpted by the Austrian sculptor Michael Powolny. The bas-relief at the bottom of the window in the tower; the sculpture surmounting the window (three male heads looking in three directions); and the four masculine figures covering the tower were made by Franz Metzner.
Precious marble has been used for the interior decoration, the music hall contains decorative paintings by the Belgian painter Knopf, the dining room is decorated by an ensemble of two big friezes in mosaic, colored by Klimt.
The garden was classified as a site in 2004. The ‘Hôtel Stoclet’ has been added to the UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in June 2009.
