02. Max Hallet Hotel (WE1)

Built between 1903 and 1905 by Victor Horta for his friend, the lawyer and politician Max Hallet, this residence marks a shift towards a more restrained style in the architect’s career. Behind an elegant façade of Euville stone – whose simplicity marks a departure from the early works of this champion of Art Nouveau – lies a luminous and poetic interior. Open and spacious, faithful to the concept of the open-plan layout so dear to Horta, a monumental entrance hall and its theatrically staged staircases harmoniously frame the layout of the rooms and their functions. All these spaces are clad in precious materials which, in the spirit of ‘total art’, interact with one another, notably through the recurring motif of roses and thorns designed by the decorative artist Victor Van Dyck.