Berlin
Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,748,148 inhabitants make it the second most populous city proper of the European Union after London; the city is one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, contiguous with its capital, Potsdam; the two cities are at the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region, which is, with about six million inhabitants and an area of more than 30,000 km², Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions. Berlin straddles the banks of the River Spree, which flows into the River Havel in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree and Dahme rivers. Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. About one-third of the city's area is composed of forests, gardens, rivers and lakes; the city lies in the Central German dialect area, the Berlin dialect being a variant of the Lusatian-New Marchian dialects.
First documented in the 13th century and situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious countries, the city was divided. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany. Berlin is a world city of culture, politics and science, its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a complex public transportation network; the metropolis is a popular tourist destination. Significant industries include IT, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology and electronics.
Berlin is home to world-renowned universities, orchestras and entertainment venues, is host to many sporting events. Its Zoological Garden is one of the most popular worldwide. With the world's oldest large-scale movie studio complex, Berlin is an popular location for international film productions; the city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, contemporary arts and a high quality of living. Since the 2000s Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene. Berlin lies in northeastern Germany, east of the River Saale, that once constituted, together with the River Elbe, the eastern border of the Frankish Realm. While the Frankish Realm was inhabited by Germanic tribes like the Franks and the Saxons, the regions east of the border rivers were inhabited by Slavic tribes; this is why most of the villages in northeastern Germany bear Slavic-derived names. Typical Germanised place name suffixes of Slavic origin are -ow, -itz, -vitz, -witz, -itzsch and -in, prefixes are Windisch and Wendisch.
The name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of today's Berlin, may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. Since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city, it is therefore a canting arm. Of Berlin's twelve boroughs, five bear a Slavic-derived name: Pankow, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Treptow-Köpenick and Spandau. Of its ninety-six neighborhoods, twenty-two bear a Slavic-derived name: Altglienicke, Alt-Treptow, Buch, Gatow, Kladow, Köpenick, Lankwitz, Lübars, Marzahn, Prenzlauer Berg, Schmöckwitz, Stadtrandsiedlung Malchow, Steglitz and Zehlendorf; the neighborhood of Moabit bears a French-derived name, Französisch Buchholz is named after the Huguenots. The earliest evidence of settlements in the area of today's Berlin are a wooden beam dated from 1192, remnants of a house foundation dated to 1174, found in excavations in Berlin Mitte; the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century.
Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920. The central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document, Berlin, across the Spree in what is now called the Nikolaiviertel, is referenced in a document from 1244. 1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, profited from the staple right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, their internal administrations still being separated. In 1415, Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. During the 15th century, his successors established Berlin-Cölln as capital of the margraviate, subsequent members of the Hohenzol
Artistic Dress movement
Artistic Dress was a fashion movement in the second half of the nineteenth century that rejected structured and trimmed Victorian trends in favour of beautiful materials and simplicity of design. It arguably developed in Britain in the early 1850s, influenced by artistic circles such as the Pre-Raphaelites, Dress Reform movements, it subsequently developed into more specific categories such as Aesthetic Dress and Künstlerkleid on the continent. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were conscious archaizers, emulating the work of the "old masters" and choosing romantic, medieval subjects, they dressed their models in long flowing gowns loosely inspired by styles of the Middle Ages. These styles were adopted by the painters' wives and models for everyday dress. Dresses were loosely fitted and comparatively plain with long puffed sleeves. Artistic dress was an extreme contrast to the tight corsets, hoop skirts and bustles, bright synthetic aniline dyes, lavish ornamentation seen in the mainstream fashion of the period.
In the 1860s, artistic dress became popular in intellectual circles and among artists for its natural beauty. Aesthetic dress of the 1880s and 1890s carries on many of the external characteristics of Artistic dress though, at its core, Aestheticism rejected the moral and social goals of the Victorian dress reform, its precursor; the Aesthetes' belief that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure was a direct rejection of the reverence for simplicity and handwork propounded by William Morris. Aesthetic dress encompasses a range of modes, from the Japonaise gowns and Kate Greenaway-inspired children's smocks of Liberty & Co. to the velvet jackets and knee breeches of Oscar Wilde's "aesthetic lecturing costume" for his speaking tour of America in 1882. Prominent designers and dressmakers associated with the movement include Ada Nettleship, who designed costumes for Oscar Wilde's wife Constance Lloyd, Alice Comyns Carr, head costume designer for the actor Ellen Terry. Anna Muthesius was a German designer living in London, annoyed that women were being exploited by clothing industrialists and that to avoid their pronouncements they should decide on their own fabrics and designs.
Her 1903 book, Das Eigenkleid der Frau, which incorporated an Art Nouveau binding by Frances MacDonald, is considered an important contribution to the Artistic Dress movement. From artistic circles and aesthetic dress spread to fashionable ones; the delicate corseted tea gowns of the turn of the 20th century echo the lines of late aesthetic dress, in their turn paved the way for the early Art Deco creations of Paul Poiret. Early artistic dress: Symphony in White No. 1 by Whistler, 1862 The young May Morris by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1872 The wives and daughters of Morris and Burne-Jones in artistic dress, 1874 Countess Brownlow in artistic dress, 1879. Liberty & Co. tea gown of figured silk twill, c. 1887. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, M.2007.211.901 Liberty art fabrics advertisement showing a young girl's dress with smocking, May 1888 The Souls Victorian fashion Victorian dress reform 1860s in fashion 1870s in fashion 1880s in fashion The Philosophy of Dress, an essay by Oscar Wilde. Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500-1914, Abrams, 1996.
ISBN 0-8109-6317-5 Aslin, Elizabeth: The Aesthetic Movement: Prelude to Art Nouveau, 1969, ISBN 0-236-17601-3 Aesthetic Dress The Aesthetic Dress Movement at Fashion-Era Pre-Raphaelite Ideals and Artistic Dress Reforming Fashion, 1850-1914: Politics and Art, Ohio State University
Glasgow School
The Glasgow School was a circle of influential artists and designers that began to coalesce in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1870s, flourished from the 1890s to around 1910. Representative groups included the Glasgow Girls and the Glasgow Boys, they were responsible for creating the distinctive Glasgow Style. Glasgow experienced an economic boom at the end of the 19th century, resulting in an increase in distinctive contributions to the Art Nouveau movement in the fields of architecture, interior design and painting. Among the most prominent definers of the Glasgow School collective were The Four, they were the painter and glass artist Margaret MacDonald, acclaimed architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, MacDonald's sister Frances and Herbert MacNair. Together, The Four defined the Glasgow Style's fusion of influences including the Celtic Revival, the Arts and Crafts Movement, Japonisme, which found favour throughout the modern art world of continental Europe; the Four, otherwise known as the Spook School made a significant impact on the definition of Art Nouveau.
The name, Spook School, or Spooky or Ghoul School, was a "derisive epithet" given to their work which "distorted and conventionalized human... form." The Glasgow Girls is the name now used for a group of female designers and artists including Margaret and Frances MacDonald, both of whom were members of The Four, Jessie M. King, Annie French, Helen Paxton Brown, Jessie Wylie Newbery, Ann Macbeth, Bessie MacNicol, Norah Neilson Gray, Stansmore Dean, Eleanor Allen Moore, De Courcy Lewthwaite Dewar, the silversmith Agnes Banks Harvey and Christian Jane Fergusson. May Wilson and Eliza Bell, among others, continued the tradition of ceramic artistry into the 1940s and 1950s by hand painting various items with floral patterns. Women were able to flourish in Glasgow during a "period of enlightenment" that took place between 1885 and 1920, where women were pursuing art careers and the Glasgow School of Art had a significant period of "international visibility"; this is sometimes attributed to the "influential" and "progressive" head of the art school, Fra Newbery, who established an environment in which women could flourish, both as students and as teachers.
Women benefited from the new Glasgow Society of Lady Artists which offered a place for women artists to meet and had exhibition space. In addition, many art school students and staff were involved in women's suffrage. "Students took turns between classes stitching up banners" for the movement. The name "Glasgow Girls" emerged much later. In the 1960s there was an attempt to give due attention to the work of the city’s women artists to balance the plentiful discussion of the Glasgow Boys, it is thought that the head of the Scottish Arts Council William Buchanan was the first to use the name in the catalogue for a 1968 Glasgow Boys exhibition. This "invention" has been called an "ironic reference" to the equivalent men’s grouping; the term Glasgow Girls was emphasised by a major exhibition Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design 1880-1920 organised by Jude Burkhauser in 1990. Through the 1880s and 1890s, around the same time that the Spook School was gaining prominence, a collective which came to be known as the Glasgow Boys was interpreting and expanding the canon of Impressionist and post-impressionist painting.
Their subject matter featured prosaic scenes from in and around Glasgow. Their colorful depictions attempted to capture the many facets of the character of Scotland; the Glasgow Boys consisted of several men, most of whom were trained in, or had strong ties to the city of Glasgow. These men were brought together by a passion for realism and naturalism and this showed through in the pieces they produced. Along with this passion for naturalism, they shared a marked distaste for the Edinburgh oriented Scottish art establishment, which they viewed as oppressive. Driven and motivated by these ideals they embraced change, created masterpieces, became Scottish icons in the process. There were three distinct waves of Glasgow Boys; the leading figures of the first wave were James Paterson and William York Macgregor, the group used to meet at Macgregor's studio. The second wave was represented in Joseph Crawhall, Thomas Millie Dow, James Guthrie, George Henry, E. A. Hornel, James Whitelaw Hamilton and E. A. Walton.
The third wave of artists were David Gauld, William Kennedy, John Lavery, Harrington Mann, Stuart Park, William Wells, David Young Cameron, Alexander Ignatius Roche, Arthur Melville, Thomas Corsan Morton, James Nairn, George Pirie and John Quinton Pringle. Their main influences were that of Japanese print, French Realism including Jules Bastien-Lepage, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, but all of their experiences around the world impacted on and inspired their work, in particular in Spain, North Africa, Japan; the group was influenced by what they saw in the world around them and strove to display these images by utilizing the techniques of realism and naturalism. This is one of the reasons that the group chose to work outdoors. Working outdoors allowed them to produce paintings that were as true to nature as possible and it allowed them to paint realistic objects in their natural environment, they painted real people in real places. The production of naturalistic paintings was new to this time period, thus their techniques were considered to be innovative.
The
Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
Willow Tearooms
The Willow Tearooms are tearooms at 217 Sauchiehall Street, Scotland, designed by internationally renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which opened for business in October 1903. They gained enormous popularity, are the most famous of the many Glasgow tearooms that opened in the late 19th and early 20th century; the building was restored to Mackintosh's original designs between 2014 and 2018. It was re-opened as working tea rooms in July 2018 and trades under the name "Mackintosh at The Willow"; this follows a trademark dispute with the former operator of The Willow Tearooms, resolved in 2017. This name is now used at tea room premises in Buchanan Street and a department store in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow; the Tea Rooms at 217 Sauchiehall Street first opened in 1903 and are the only surviving Tea Rooms designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for local entrepreneur and patron Miss Catherine Cranston. Over the years and through various changes of ownership and use, the building had deteriorated until it was purchased in 2014 by The Willow Tea Rooms Trust in order to prevent the forced sale of the building, closure of the Tea Rooms and loss of its contents to collectors.
Early in his career, in 1896, Mackintosh met Catherine Cranston, an entrepreneurial local business woman, the daughter of a Glasgow tea merchant and a strong believer in temperance. The temperance movement was becoming popular in Glasgow at the turn of the century and Miss Cranston had conceived the idea of a series of "art tearooms", venues where people could meet to relax and enjoy non-alcoholic refreshments in a variety of different "rooms" within the same building; this proved to be the start of a long working relationship between Miss Mackintosh. Between 1896 and 1917 he designed and re-styled interiors in all four of her Glasgow tearooms in collaboration with his wife Margaret Macdonald. Mackintosh was engaged to design the wall murals of her new Buchanan Street tearooms in 1896; the tearooms had been designed and built by George Washington Browne of Edinburgh, with interiors and furnishings being designed by George Walton. Mackintosh designed stencilled friezes depicting opposing pairs of elongated female figures surrounded by roses for the ladies’ tearoom, the luncheon room and the smokers’ gallery.
In 1898, his next commission for the existing Argyle Street tearooms saw the design roles reversed, with Mackintosh designing the furniture and interiors, Walton designing the wall murals. This was to see the first appearance of Mackintosh's trademark high-backed chair design. In 1900 Miss Cranston commissioned him to redesign an entire room in her Ingram Street tearooms, which resulted in the creation of the White Dining Room. Patrons entering the dining room from Ingram Street had to pass through a hallway separated from the room by a wooden screen with leaded glass inserts, offering tantalising glimpses of the experience to come; this led to the commission to design the proposed new tearooms in Sauchiehall Street in 1903. For the first time, Mackintosh was given responsibility for not only the interior design and furniture, but for the full detail of the internal layout and exterior architectural treatment; the resultant building came to be known as the Willow Tearooms, is the best known and most important work that Mackintosh undertook for Miss Cranston.
The location selected by Miss Cranston for the new tearooms was a four-storey former warehouse building on a narrow infill urban site on the south side of Sauchiehall Street. The name "Sauchiehall" is derived from "saugh", the Scots word for a willow tree, "haugh", meadow; this provided the starting point for MacDonald's ideas for the design theme. Within the existing structure, Mackintosh designed a range of spaces with different functions and decor for the Glasgow patrons to enjoy. There was a ladies’ tearoom to the front of the ground floor, with a general lunch room to the back and a tea gallery above it; the first floor contained the "Room de Luxe", a more exclusive ladies' room overlooking Sauchiehall Street. The second floor contained smoking rooms for the men; the design concept foresaw a place for the ladies to meet their friends, for the men to use on their breaks from office work - an oasis in the city centre. The decoration of the different rooms was themed: light for feminine, dark for masculine.
The ladies' tea room at the front was white and rose. In addition to designing the internal architectural alterations and a new external facade, in collaboration with his wife Margaret, Mackintosh designed every other aspect of the tearooms, including the interior design, cutlery and the waitress uniforms. Willow was the basis for the name of the tearooms, but it formed an integral part of the decorative motifs employed in the interior design, much of the timberwork used in the building fabric and furniture; the Room de Luxe was the most extravagant of the rooms that Mackintosh created, proved to be the tearooms' main attraction. The room was positioned on the first floor at the front of the building above the level of the tea gallery at the rear, featured a vaulted ceiling with a full-width curved bay window looking out to Sauchiehall Street. Entrance to the room was by way of a magnificent set of double doors which featured leaded glass decoration, hinting at the colours and motifs to be found beyond.
Described at the time as "a fantasy for afternoon tea", the room was richly decorated. It featured a sumptuous col
Max Koner
Max Johann Bernhard Koner was a German portrait painter. From 1873 to 1878, he studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts under Eduard Daege, Anton von Werner and others, he spent some time in Italy in 1875 and, after graduating went to study in Paris. In 1893, he became a member of the Academy. Devoted to landscape painting, he switched to figure painting and to portraits. Between 1888 and his death, he completed over 100 portraits, including thirty of Kaiser Wilhelm II, beginning in 1890, depicting him in various uniforms. In 1894, one of those portraits was awarded a gold medal at the "Große Berliner Kunstausstellung", a prestigious exhibition held from 1893 to 1969. In 1886, he married one of his students, Sophie Schäffer, who became a noted portrait painter, his other notable students included Clara Siewert and Paul Gerhart Vowe. For several years, he served as a member of the committee that selected artists for the popular trading cards issued by the Stollwerck chocolate company. Following his premature death, he was buried at the Friedhöfe vor dem Halleschen Tor and a competition was held to design his monument there.
It was won by Fritz Klimsch. The monument has not been preserved. Among his most notable portraits may be numbered those of Adolf von Menzel, Andreas Achenbach, Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Anton von Werner, Ernst Curtius, Johannes von Miquel, Eugen Bracht, Georg von Kameke and Herbert von Bismarck Max Jordan: Koner, Velhagen & Klasings Künstlermonographien, 1901 Irmgard Wirth: Berliner Malerei im 19. Jahrhundert. Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-572-10011-9, S. 347. Media related to Max Koner at Wikimedia Commons
Henry van de Velde
Henry Clemens Van de Velde was a Belgian painter and interior designer. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar, he is considered one of the founders of Art Nouveau in Belgium. Van de Velde spent the most important part of his career in Germany and had a decisive influence on German architecture and design at the beginning of the 20th century. Van de Velde was born in Antwerp, where he studied painting under Charles Verlat at the famous Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, he went on to study at Carolus-Duran in Paris. As a young painter he was influenced by Paul Signac and Georges Seurat and soon adopted a neo-impressionist style. In 1889 he became a member of the Brussels-based artist group "Les XX". After Vincent van Gogh exhibited some work on the yearly exhibition of Les XX van de Velde became one of the first artists to be influenced by the Dutch painter. During this period he developed a lasting friendship with the painter Théo van Rysselberghe and the sculptor Constantin Meunier. In 1892 he abandoned painting, devoting his time to arts of interior design.
His own house, Bloemenwerf in Ukkel, was his first attempt at architecture, was inspired by the British and American Arts and Crafts Movement. He designed interiors and furniture for the influential art gallery "L'Art Nouveau" of Samuel Bing in Paris in 1895; this gave the movement its first designation as Art Nouveau. Bing’s pavilion at the 1900 Paris world fair exhibited work by Van de Velde. Van de Velde was influenced by John Ruskin and William Morris’s English Arts and Crafts movement and he was one of the first architects or furniture designers to apply curved lines in an abstract style. Van de Velde set his face against copying historical styles, resolutely opting for original design, banning banality and ugliness from people’s minds. Van de Velde's design work received good exposure in Germany, through periodicals like Innen-Dekoration, subsequently he received commissions for interior designs in Berlin. Around the turn of the century, he designed Villa Leuring in the Netherlands, Villa Esche in Chemnitz, two works that show his Art Nouveau style in architecture.
He designed the interior of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen and the Nietzsche House in Weimar. In 1899 he settled in Weimar, where in 1905 he established the Grand-Ducal School of Arts and Crafts, together with the Grand Duke of Weimar, it is the predecessor of the Bauhaus, following World War I replaced the School of Arts and Crafts, under new director Walter Gropius, suggested for the position by Van de Velde. Although a Belgian, Van de Velde would play an important role in the German Werkbund, an association founded to help improve and promote German design by establishing close relations between industry and designers, he would oppose Hermann Muthesius at the Werkbund meeting of 1914 and their debate would mark the history of Modern Architecture. Van de Velde called for the upholding of the individuality of artists while Hermann Muthesius called for standardization as a key to development. During World War I, Van de Velde, as a foreign national, was obliged to leave Weimar, returned to his native Belgium.
He lived in Switzerland and in the Netherlands where he designed the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. In 1925 he was appointed professor at the Ghent University Institute of Art History and Archaeology, where he lectured architecture and applied arts from 1926 to 1936, he was instrumental in founding in Brussels, in 1926, today's renowned architecture and visual arts school La Cambre, under the name of "Institut supérieur des Arts décoratifs." He continued his practice in architecture and design, which had demarcated itself from the Art Nouveau phase, whose popularity was by 1910 in decline. During this period, he mentored Victor Bourgeois. In 1933 he was commissioned to design the new building for the university library. Construction started in 1936, but the work would not be completed until the end of the Second World War. For budget reasons, the eventual construction did not match the original design. For instance, the reading room floor was executed in marble instead of the black rubber Van de Velde intended.
He was involved in the construction of the Ghent University Hospital. He died, aged 94, in Zürich. October 12, 2005 a teapot designed by Van de Velde made €170,000 at a public auction at the Brussels Beaux-Arts auction house – eleven times the opening bid, it is a teapot on a chafing dish, with a wooden handle, resting on an oval basis and made of silver-plated brass. During an Art Nouveau and Design exhibition at the Brussels Cinquantenaire Museum in 2005, Henry Van de Velde’s tea set, two china plates and a silver dish were badly damaged in an unfortunate accident; the silver candle stand remained unharmed. The pieces had been given on temporary loan by Krefeld’s Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne and a private collector. Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit: Henry Van de Velde und sein Beitrag zur europäischen Moderne, Neues Museum Weimar, March 24 – June 23, 2013. Der Architekt Henry Van de Velde, Bauhaus Universität Weimar, March 29 – May 12, 2013. 1895–96: "Bloemenwerf", Van de Velde's first private residence, in Ukkel, Belgium 1895: Interior decoration of Siegfried Bing's art Gallery "Maison de l'art nouveau" in Paris, France 1900–02: Interior of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Ge
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