Autrique House was the first building designed by Victor Horta in the Art Nouveau style, completed in 1893 for his friend Eugene Autrique, and it marks the moment when the young architect began to break from convention. Standing on the Chaussee de Haecht in the Schaerbeek district, it is often described as the missing link between traditional bourgeois architecture and the flowing, organic style that Horta and his followers would soon make famous across Brussels. The house already contains the elements that would define the movement, slender iron columns, sgraffito decoration, stained glass, mosaic floors and a careful handling of natural light, though in a restrained form compared with Horta later, more flamboyant work. It was an experiment, a place where ideas were tested that would be magnified in the great town houses that followed. For decades the building was neglected, but a careful restoration led by the architect Francis Metzger brought it back, and the municipality of Schaerbeek opened it to the public as a museum. The interior staging was devised by the comic-strip artist Francois Schuiten and the writer Benoit Peeters, who gave the rooms an evocative, story-like atmosphere rather than a dry period reconstruction. That imaginative presentation sets the house apart from other Art Nouveau interiors. Visitors move through rooms dressed as though their inhabitants had only just stepped out, with furniture, objects and lighting arranged to suggest a lived-in home from the turn of the twentieth century. The location, a little outside the central tourist circuit, means the house tends to be quieter than the better-known Horta sites, rewarding those who make the short journey with a more intimate encounter with the architect early vision. For admirers of Art Nouveau, or of Horta in particular, Autrique House offers the rare chance to stand at the very start of a design revolution, in the modest but pivotal building where it began. The house opens on selected days, typically later in the week and at weekends, so checking times before travelling is advisable, and admission is modest. Reached by tram or a short journey from the centre, it suits visitors following the Art Nouveau trail, and the imaginative staging makes it especially rewarding for those who already know the grander Horta town houses elsewhere in the city.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Chaussee de Haecht 266, Brussels, Belgium

Telephone: +32 2 215 66 00

Website: https://www.autrique.be

Opening Date: 01/01/1893