HENRY VAN DE VELDE
F O U N D A T I O N
CURRENT PROJECTS THAT INSPIRE US.
Here are some of our favorite current projects - books, new research, exhibitions, renovations, and even commercial try-outs - that highlight how HvdV is still inspiring innovation and design thinking.
HvdV Digital Catalogue Now Online
Klassik Stiftung Weimar has launched a comprehensive online catalogue of works by Henry van de Velde, one of the most influential designers of the early 20th century. Featuring over 1,600 meticulously researched objects—from furniture and ceramics to textiles and metalwork—the catalogue is freely accessible worldwide starting August 29, 2025.
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The digital resource includes high-resolution images, design data, provenance details, and extensive contextual information. For the first time, 377 models of seating and wicker furniture are featured online. The project is part of Klassik Stiftung Weimar’s digital transformation and will continue to grow, with hundreds more entries planned by 2027.
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Supported by leading institutions and international partners, this digital catalogue sets a new standard for catalogue raisonnés and offers invaluable insight into Van de Velde’s legacy for scholars, collectors, and design enthusiasts worldwide.
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For the full press release click here. Note that this press release is in German only.
Read the full speech of HvdV foundation's chairman, Mathijs van Houweninge, here.
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Pictures:
Top: Most of the KSW team for this project​​​
Bottom: One of HdV's iconic chaise longues, as part of the digital catalogue
Fourth volume of "Art Nouveau Belge: Vers l'Idéal" focuses on Henry van de Velde
The fourth volume of the series "Art Nouveau belge, vers l’idéal", dedicated to Henry van de Velde, is now been available. Directed by Borys Delobbe (CERTA-UCLouvain) and Jonathan Mangelinckx, with a preface by Anne Van Loo, this collective work brings the series to a close.
This overview of Art Nouveau design in Belgium at the turn of the 19th century could not be “complete” without considering the fourth key figure, Henry van de Velde (1863-1957), whose career as an architect and designer was essentially spent in Germany, in Weimar in particular. In the early 1890s, through the XX group in Brussels, he made friends with several other young painters who, like him, embraced the neo-Impressionism of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, before transforming themselves into artist-craftsmen driven by the same irresistible desire to thoroughly renovate the decorative arts: Georges Lemmen (1865-1916), Alfred William Finch (1854-1930) and Théo Van Rysselberghe (1862-1926), along with Henry van de Velde, embodied a vein of Belgian Art Nouveau that set out to conquer the pages of books, the sides of furniture, the contours of everyday objects and the earth at the origin of ceramics.
The innumerable works and archives collected over almost two decades by Jonathan Mangelinckx serve here as an essential support for research: as in archaeology, new material discoveries lead us to constantly re-examine what we thought had been definitively established. In her introduction, Françoise Aubry (Honorary Curator of the Musée Horta) explores the constant refinement of the knowledge that goes into colors, lights and shadows in Art Nouveau interiors seen as landscapes. It's all about perspective.​
More information on the book can be found here.
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3D tea gown replica at MoMu
MoMu and d_archive have joined forces to create a speculative 3D version of a velvet tea gown with embroidered appliqués, designed by Henry van de Velde around 1896 and worn by his wife, Maria Sèthe.
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To achieve this, the d_archive team and MoMu’s textile conservator Kim Verkens and pattern-cutter Stijn Van den Bulck drew on several resources: surviving embroidered appliqués from Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, historical photos of Maria Sèthe in the gown at Villa Bloemenwerf, and a replica from the Kunstmuseen Krefeld Collection.
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The living and working areas of Villa Bloemenwerf were connected by a central hallway, where Maria Sèthe would play the piano. Her portrait, which corresponded with the colour palette of the house, had a pivotal position on the wall. The villa is well documented thanks to a photo series for which Maria posed in various dresses. Most of the designs were loose-fitting: she gave birth to seven children between 1895 and 1904.
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One of the tea gowns was made from fluid velvet and decorated with embroidery on the cuffs, hem, bodice and shoulders. The lines of the embroidery match the interior of the house, and the photographs showing Maria posing next to the furniture highlight this visual harmony.
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The 3D replica is part of the exhibition "Fashion & Interiors. A Gendered Affair", now at MoMu. Find more information about the exhibition here.
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Photo credit: 3D replica of a velvet tea gown with embroidered appliqués,
designed by Henry van de Velde (c. 1896), 3D replica and animation
by d_archive commissioned by MoMu, 2025, © d_archive.
The Belgian Friendship Building
How did the Belgian Friendship Building, originally constructed for the 1939 New York World’s Fair—and one of only a few surviving buildings from that celebrated exhibition—end up on the campus of an HBCU in Richmond, Virginia? In this richly illustrated book, Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Katherine Kuenzli, and Bryan Clark Green relate the fascinating story, spanning three continents, of a distinctly modern structure that has towered over Virginia Union University, in a city characterized by its traditional architecture, for more than eighty years. It is a structure whose original purposes—to present modern Belgian design and to extol its racist, colonial regime—stand in stark contrast to its dedication in 1941 to Robert L. Vann, longtime editor of one of America’s most illustrious historic Black newspapers. The Belgian Friendship Building is an enduring example of prewar modernism designed by a team of Belgian architects under the direction of Henry van de Velde that has until now been all but forgotten in histories of modern architecture. This indispensable, multifaceted account ties together the history of modern European architecture, colonial exploitation, and African American achievement in a brilliant and compelling case study.
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The book is available for pre-order now with a projected release date of June 2025. Find more information here. ​​
HvdV and trains - a new book is out now
A relatively unknown part of Henry van de Velde’s work is his contribution to the national railway company of Belgium (SNCB). HvdV was artistic advisor of the company (1930-1938) when it was equipping itself with new metal train cars and building several stations.
Anne van Loo (Doctor of Architecture and a specialist in Henry van de Velde) and Françoise Aubry (honorary director of the Horta Museum) have joined forces in the writing of a book about the SNCB and the contributions of HvdV and Victor Horta. The book describes how Victor Horta plays a major role in the design of the central station in Brussels. At the same time, HvdV is hired as an art advisor to help with the replacement of the wooden railway cars with metal cars. His main interventions concern the logo of SNCB and the careful study of interior fittings and equipment with a view to modernity, comfort and passenger safety. HvdV also oversees and advises on the architecture of new stations and technical buildings.
The book is available in French and Dutch.
A new exhibition at Train World (near Brussels, Belgium) will open on 19 September 2024. The exhibition is called “Draw me a Train” and addresses a broader audience (including children). It will include two trains designed by van de Velde that will be open to visitors.
The exhibition will be available for several months. Find more information about the exhibition here.​
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Left picture: Electric self-propelled AM 35, third class. HvdV designer, 1935. Photo credit: Georges de Kinder
Right picture: Electric self-propelled AM 35, second class. HvdV designer, 1935. Photo credit: SNCB/Train World Heritage
Cahier 18: Hôtel Otlet - Now available!
Following the 2021 publication of cahier no. 17, the association Fonds Henry van de Velde is travelling back in time for a new study devoted to one of Van de Velde’s rare art nouveau constructions in Brussels, Hôtel Otlet (1896 – 98) with their new Cahier no 18.
For this project, HvdV worked as an interior designer rather than as an architect, for which he collaborated with architect Octave Van Rysselberghe (1855–1929). Everything seems to indicate that both men worked together from the outset of the building’s design and the overall coherence of the project is indeed striking. Architect Maud Rochez provides a detailed analysis of their collaboration, the design of Hôtel Otlet and its genesis. She concludes her article with suggestions for future restoration work.
The cahier also details an up-to-date reading of the architect Van Rysselberghe, about whom is known very little, by Luc Verpoest, who is also the editorial director of this Cahier. Beyond the architect and decorator, and even beyond this exceptional building, this publication also focuses on the figure of Paul Otlet [1868-1944], who commissioned the eponymous hotel. ere, historian and professor Pierre Van den Dungen paints a portrait that places the man in the context of an era and an intellectual and artistic milieu to which his contemporaries van de Velde and Van Rysselberghe also belonged.
Both a monograph and a triptych, this Cahier aims to contribute to ongoing and future research into an exceptional building and its three main protagonists.
This e-book is now available in English - for free - for the academic world and other interested parties.
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Left picture Photo credit: Sylvie Desauw, 1988
Right picture: Cover of cahier no 18
Newly published dissertation
This book explores the different aspects of Henry van de Velde’s creative activity through the study of his writings and works, specifically during the German period.
The primary task of this study was to cast light on van de Velde’s writings and realized works, and to establish their place in the development of his aesthetic theory, as well as to explore the major themes that recur throughout his writings, themes such as ‘rational conception’, ‘empathy’ and ‘line-force’; and their role within his overall conception of the aesthetic work. The investigation focused on the German period of Henry van de Velde, as it constituted the period of his greatest activity as a designer, teacher, and architect.
The principal hypothesis of this study is that van de Velde’s aesthetic theory was based on the resolution of the dialectic of rational conception and empathic will, a resolution that is set into work through the ornamental function, within an ‘organic’ conception of the artwork. This ‘organic’ conception provides the background that allows for a better understanding of Henry van de Velde’s design work and pedagogy, and his dedication to an aesthetic theory that would resist the elimination of the role of the human being in the process of creation.
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To purchase a copy of this book, click here.
Now available! - "Selected essays, 1889-1914 by Katherine M. Kuenzli
Katherine Kuenzli, associate professor of art history, received a Scholarly Editions and Translations grant, which she has used to prepare a critical edition and translation of a selection of writings by Henry van de Velde. These writings, which include a selection of twenty-six essays, have been translated from French and German and cover van de Velde’s writings on William Morris and the English Arts and Crafts movement, Neo-Impressionist painting, and relationships between ornament, line, and abstraction in German aesthetics. The texts trace the evolution of van de Velde’s thoughts during his most productive period as a theorist in the artistic debates in France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Katherine M. Kuenzli expertly guides readers to see how van de Velde’s writings reconcile themes of aesthetics and function, and expression and reason, throughout the artistic periods and regions represented by these texts. With introductory discussions of each essay and full annotations, this is an essential volume for a broad range of scholars and students of the history of fine and applied arts and ideas.
The book can be ordered here.
Villa Esche develops app
The HvdV museum in Villa Esche in Chemnitz, Germany, can now be explored with an interactive app. The app is designed as a game with exciting augmented reality experiences and is geared towards all people young at heart. The game can be played alone, as a team or with a school class. In the game the user will be guided through the villa by Henry van de Velde and the Esche family. There are 16 stations throughout the villa with exciting games and quizzes. The goal of the game is to collect as many points as possible and to unlock bonus surprises.
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The villa offers rental devices on site to play the app. You can also download the app on your own smartphone. Simply go to Villa Esche and play!
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More information about Villa Esche can be found here.
Belgian historian Ruben Mantels to publish new Henry van de Velde biography
"A line in time. The life of Henry van de Velde (1863-1957)" is the working title of a new biography about Henry van de Velde. The Henry van de Velde Foundation is pleased to announce it will support the research and writing of this biography. Its author, Ruben Mantels (1979), is a well known Belgian historian. His interest in Van de Velde stems from his earlier work on the ‘Boekentoren' (of which Van de Velde was the architect), on the history of Ghent University (where Van de Velde taught between 1925 and 1936) and on August Vermeylen (a kindred spirit, with whom Van de Velde published the Flemish literary journal Van Nu & Straks during the 1890s).
Mantels says: "I am very excited the Henry van de Velde Foundation has agreed to support my work, together with Ghent University Library”. He adds: "It is precisely the multi-faceted aspect of Van de Velde’s art, his long life and the international dimension of his oeuvre that require biographical synthesis, which will simultaneously serve as European cultural history. In my book, I will strive to capture the ‘line’ in Van de Velde's life, and to portray him against the backdrop of political and cultural history of the 19th and 20th centuries".
Mr. Mantels will work several years on this biography, which is expected to be published before or by the occasion of the centennial of La Cambre in 2027.
Any questions, suggestions or comments on this biography, may be addressed to Peter Schansman or Ruben Mantels.
