Hôtel Guimard is an

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

town house built in 1909–1912 by

Hector Guimard Hector Guimard (, 10 March 1867 – 20 May 1942) was a French architect and designer, and a prominent figure of the Art Nouveau style. He achieved early fame with his design for the Castel Beranger, the first Art Nouveau apartment building ...

for use as his home and architectural studio, with a studio for his wife, the painter Adeline Oppenheim Guimard. It is considered one of the best surviving examples of his mature style. The house is located at 122 Avenue Mozart in the

16th arrondissement The 16th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''seizième''. The arrondissement includes part of the Arc de Tr ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Building

Avenue Mozart was a prestigious street with several mansions. Guimard built with cut stone as well as his characteristic brick, for which he here used a low-contrast shade, and although the fenestration is highly irregular (including a corner window and characteristic lanterns above a long balcony on the top floor), the ground-floor and top-floor windows on the main façade are symmetrical, so the building is more redolent of the eighteenth century than his earlier more or less fantastical houses. The small corner lot imposed a triangular shape on the house but made internal load-bearing walls unnecessary, and to save space, he did not include a main staircase, installing a lift instead. The interior layout differed on each floor: studios for his architectural business occupied the ground floor, reception rooms the floor above (including an oval salon and an oval dining room), living quarters the second floor and his wife's studio the top floor; the vast studio window has since been altered. Guimard also designed the interior decoration and the furniture, for which he used pear wood; the dining-room chairs feature interlaced initials 'O' and 'G',Ferré, Rheims and Vigne, pp. 212–13. as does the table linen.

History

Hôtel Guimard was built between 1909 and 1912, and from 1913 until they left France for the United States in 1937, housed both Guimard's practice and his wife Adeline Oppenheim Guimard's studio, as well as their living quarters; he had previously had his architectural business on the ground floor of his

Castel Béranger The Castel Béranger is a residential building with thirty-six apartments located at 14 rue de la Fontaine in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed by the architect Hector Guimard, and built between 1895 and 1898. It was the first re ...

, which was primarily flats. After the architect's death in 1942, his wife offered the house and its contents to the French state. Her offer was refused, however, the building was converted into flats, and the fittings have been scattered. The dining room suite can today be seen at the Petit Palais; the bedroom at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon; the study at the Musée de l'École de Nancy; and other furnishings are at the

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

and

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York. File:Photograph, Photograph of Facade and Windows of the House of Hector Guimard, 22 Rue Mozart, ca. 1910 (CH 18411101).jpg, Early photograph of main façade with original windows File:Photograph, Dining Room, Hôtel Guimard, rue Mozart, Paris, France, ca. 1910 (CH 18411063-2).jpg, Early photograph of the dining room

References

{{Commons category, Hôtel Guimard Works by Hector Guimard 16th arrondissement of Paris 20th century in Paris Art Nouveau houses Art Nouveau architecture in Paris