-
Sarah Bernhardt and the Parisian muses of La Belle Époque (6.5h)
From: 560 €
Brussels, the Cradle of Art Nouveau (3h)
390 €
During this Half Day – 3 hour walking private tour you will explore the main Art Nouveau marvels of the unique city of Brussels accompanied by a knowledgeable guide who will point out the colorful details and imaginative ornamentation on the buildings and tell their history.
The brilliant creative works of architects like Victor Horta or Paul Hankar bring pleasure to the thousands of visitors who admire these opulent houses.
As the figurehead for Art Nouveau, Victor Horta introduced a new style of art and started using new materials like industrial steel and glass to better the lives of the residents of his revolutionary buildings.
We have designed a unique private tour to discover his works with style. We will show you unique façade designs, work on tiles, iron and wood, and discover many functional elements found in buildings built at the turn of the 19th into the 20th Century in Art Nouveau style. Some stained glass windows are also of interest.
If you love Art Nouveau and travel to Belgium or even Paris, you won’t find a better tour to discover all that Art Nouveau Brussels has to offer than with our tours. Discover or re-discover St Gilles, Châtelain and Ixelles and enjoy the freedom of a private tour.
The best of Brussels’ Art Nouveau in just 3 hours. The fast train network will let you enjoy this tour on a one-day trip from Paris.
Start of the private tour: 12:30. We can move this time according to your train arrival time.
Duration: 3 hours.
Price regardless of the size of your private group:
1 – 6 PAX = 390€
+ 6 PAX – Please Contact Us
Having trouble booking online? Don’t hesitate to WhatsApp/Call us at +34 667 823 001 or email us now
Make a Reservation
Description
Itinerary
Starting at 12:30 you will spend 3 hours enjoying the best Art Nouveau in Brussels in an exclusive tour for your private group. You will walk along the neighborhoods of St Gilles, Châtelain and Ixelles, spending most of the time discovering façades and the history behind them.
Your private guide will pick you up in the Garde du Midi to start the tour. This pick-up location is great for those groups and small groups arriving in Brussels by train from Paris or from other cities like Amsterdam, Maastricht or Luxembourg City.
The Private Tour will start in a café/brasserie located in Saint-Gilles where your guide will give you an introduction about Art Nouveau and accompany you for a morning drink. The café is decorated in Art Nouveau style but be careful because, as your guide will tell to you, this is not real Art Nouveau from the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century.
From there you will stroll through Rue Defacqz to visit several amazing Art Nouveau buildings there, one of them the house of Paul Hankar, a great Belgian architect and furniture designer, and an innovator in the Art Nouveau style.
The building of the Tassel hotel (1894) gave rise to Art Nouveau and you will learn everything about it. This building was a first major calling card for Victor Horta, who went on to leave his mark on the capital along with the support of other great architects of the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century such as Hankar, van de Velde, etc.
Hôtel Solvay (1900), considered Horta’s most ambitious work, was constructed just one year after the Tassel house, and it was built for the leading chemist Armand Solvay, who gave Horta the creative freedom that he was looking for.
After discovering some other Art Nouveau buildings, if you are tired you may have a break in a nice café in the Rue de Florence. As this is a private tour and you will have a say in the tour itinerary, if you prefer not to stop, the private tour will continue without stopping by.
Later, you will analyze a nice Art Deco building and your guide will explain differences amongst Art Nouveau and Art Deco with practical examples. In the section Agenda of our website, a while ago we published an article about these differences.
Then, you will head to Square Louis Morichar and from there go to visit the outside of several Art Nouveau buildings located nearby. For the upper middle class in Brussels, working with Horta was a symbol of success and sophistication.
Finally you will arrive at Horta Museum at 25 Rue Américaine, in what it was Horta’s former home and workshop. There, our guide will show you the building façade and explain you what is inside in relation to other Horta’s buildings discovered during the tour. Our private tour will end there at 15.30.
We recommend that if you have time you visit the museum on your own after our tour ends. You may take up to one hour to see it in detail.
Languages
Our specialised Art Nouveau guide can guide you in English, French or Dutch. Please select the language of your choice in the list below the calendar.
Pickup & Drop Off
The tour starts Tour starts at Saint Gilles (exact address given once you book the private tour), or if you prefer at the entrance of the Garde du Midi.
The tour ends in front of Horta Museum, so you can visit it to end the journey.
This private tour is a good option for those wondering how is Art Nouveau in the city where this art style started. It an be visit if you stay in Brussels and also if you stay in Paris and want to have a nice day outside town.
No public transport involved.
Exclusions
Our private tour does not include a visit to Horta Museum, which is closed on Mondays.
If after the tour you want to visit the Horta Museum on your own, entrance fees are as follow: Adults 10€ – Seniors 6€ – Primary/Secondary pupils from 6 to 18 years 3€ – Students 5€. To see information about the entry times and entry prices CLICK HERE.
Additional Info
Your expert guide will take you on an informative and very well documented walk through the streets of this enchanting city providing a fascinating and exclusive insight into the history of the place where Art Nouveau was born.
This tour will operate in all weather conditions so participants should take appropriate weather gear with them and involves approximately 40 minutes of walking, although walking time can depend on the group.
Cancellation Policy – The booking can be canceled up to 2 weeks prior to the tour date. In this case you will receive a refund of the booking minus the financial fees. Further cancellations and no shows are non refundable. In this undesirable situation all amounts pending will be claimed.
about Brussels
There are over 200 examples of Art Nouveau buildings around Brussels, and we will show you the best ones, explaining the history behind them. The era had moved on from Gothic Revival, Neoclassicism, Renaissance Revival, etc. It was itching for new ideas, materials and an elegant natural style, with a touch of Japan to counter the cold, grey march of industrialism.
This tour will cover St Gilles and Ixelles and will not show you other areas like the Schaerbeek district, in north of the city where the Maison Autrique is located. If you have time, we also recommend you to visit on your own the Musical Instruments Museum and the Brussels Comic Book Museum, both of them located inside two art nouveau buildings in the city center.
about Victor Horta
Art Nouveau was born in 1893 thanks to the visionary mind of Victor Horta. With interesting curvatures of glass and steel, Victor Horta’s masterpieces shaped the face of Brussels, influencing architects all over the world.
Victor Horta is without doubt the most important exponent of Art Nouveau in Belgium, the artistic-architectural movement that succeeded Neoclassicism and that spread throughout Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among his works, his home-studio stands out for the quality of its spatial conception and the prolixity of its details. UNESCO, declaring this building as a World Heritage Site, stressed that “the stylistic revolution represented by these works is characterized by the diffusion of light, and the bright connection of the lines of decoration with the structure of the building”.
other Art Nouveau private tours in Belgium
We organise two Day Private tours from Brussels: one to Antwerp (one hour from Brussels by train from Brussels) and the other one to Mechelen (half way between Brussels and Antwerp). For more information about Art Nouveau Day tours outside Brussels CONTACT US.
If you have a passion for Art Nouveau, Belgium is definitely for you.
Reviews
The Art Nouveau tour of Brussels was a fabulous experience and we discovered impressive buildings of the superstars of Art Nouveau Victor Horta and Paul Hankar. We liked the tour so much that we also did a tour in Antwerp with the same co. Beautiful Art Nouveau in Belgium.
Mike, BOSTON
If you feel that this private tour can be of interest to your colleagues share it with them in your Social Networks: