Tournai’s Art Nouveau masterpieces are one of Belgium’s hidden treasures, tucked in the province of Hainaut, just an hour by train or 89 km southwest of Brussels.
Rivalling the capital’s better-known stock of Art Nouveau architecture, Tournai boasts a Fine Art Museum created by none other than the godfather of the style himself, Victor Horta, as well as numerous Art Nouveau mansions that chart the growth of the middle classes in this historic crossroads of a city.
Art Nouveau walks
As well as guided walks with experts at certain times of the year, tourists, architecture lovers, photographers and flaneurs can discover the impact the Art Nouveau movement had on this once Roman stronghold via an information leaflet and self-guided walk, available from the Tourism Office in person and online.
In the early 1900s, over the course of barely a quarter of a century, Art Nouveau practitioners, many of them Tournai natives, would rebel against imitative and generic building styles and find new ways of meeting the needs of an emerging and increasingly progressive bourgeoisie.
Organic forms, colour, and symbols
Arriving at the rail station, visitors are in for a treat. The immediate area’s squares and boulevards were created after the ancient city removed part of its ramparts to facilitate growth towards the end of the 19th century. Here you’ll find impressive examples of facades adorned with Art Nouveau’s organic and geometric forms, colours, large windows and protruding decorative elements.
Don’t miss the balcony, the front door and sgraffito (a kind of decorative plasterwork) of two houses at numbers 20 and 24 Rue de la Justice, designed by Georges De Porre, professor at the Tournai Academy of Fine Arts, and Georges Dugardin, one of his students.
“Spot the Art Nouveau”
And at 128 Boulevard du Roi Albert, sits an extraordinary red and ochre house designed by Alphonse Dufour, another son of Tournai who provides proof that the city is a breeding ground for its own art. The facade unites Egyptian motifs, mirrors, and sgraffito portrayals of painters and architects, alongside other symbols such as flowers, and an owl – to signify incredulity.
While not all the Art Nouveau architecture in Tournai has survived, its numerous traces are pointed out in the walking guide, with useful details including house numbers to look out for and pictures to help guide your eye. This comes into its own, especially along Boulevard du Roi Albert where you can play “spot the Art Nouveau” among various houses’ ironwork, woodwork, windows and even letter boxes (see house number 132).
Victor Horta’s only art museum
On the other side of the river Escaut running through the city sits the only art museum designed by Victor Horta. Another witness to changing times and tastes, the building’s original Art Nouveau design was delayed by the First World War, and afterwards was adjusted by Horta to incorporate rising Art Deco elements.
Close to the Natural History Museum and Butterfly House, which are also well worth a visit, Horta conceived of an immense gallery space in the shape of a turtle with a stunning glass roof. It needed to be a building fit to house the art of Belgian collector Henri Van Cutsem which contained important works by Manet, Monet, Seurat and others. Major renovations are currently underway, promising a brand new gallery and preserving Horta’s edifice as a shared public space which, when finished, will take Art Nouveau in Tournai into the 21st century.
