Henry Van de Velde

Born in Antwerp in 1863 and died in Oberägeri, Switzerland, in 1957, Henry Van de Velde studied at the Antwerp Academy and then in Paris under Carolus-Duran. A painter turned architect and designer, he was, with Horta and Hankar, a leading figure of Belgian Art Nouveau (Bloemenwerf house in Uccle, 1895) before directing the Weimar school of applied arts, a forerunner of the Bauhaus. Back in Belgium he taught at Ghent University (1925) and in 1926 founded the Institut supérieur des arts décoratifs of La Cambre, which he directed until 1936. His late, modernist-leaning work culminates in the Boekentoren of Ghent University, designed in the 1930s.

Translated from the French original.