Little Tour of Paris Art Nouveau

Dear Everyone,

I was woken up in the early hours of the morning by an idea for a walk. A flash of inspiration indeed. So, off I set around 9h, armed with bottle of water, notebook and guidebook of Paris on a mission. A mission to find the best examples of Art Nouveau in Paris. Where better to begin, said my guidebook, than the 16è arrondissement, where Hector Guimard found backers who helped him create his dreams of a totally new form of architecture, a long way from the classical forms found almost everywhere on the boulevards of Paris. The 16è became the priveleged domain of the greatest architect of Art Nouveau...and to think, I had passed his own house on avenue Mozart almost every day for 6 years and hated that house - so spooky and mysterious looking - that I always crossed the road to avoid it...but more on that later.

My quest began on rue La Fontaine, at number 14. Guimard was only 27 years old when a young widow, Elisabeth Fournier, ordered him to construct an apartment building for 36 modest but comfortable flats. Guimard really let his imagination run riot using a vast variety of materials and colours, something that was pretty inconceivable at the time. And so, Castel Béranger, as it was called, became dubbed Castel Dérangé. It is nevertheless a masterpiece, whatever one thinks of it. Reliefs and edges jut out right, left and centre. Gone are the curves and symmetry of the classic style. You cannot look at it in bits, or at least I couldn't, for it caused my hair to stand on end. Far better see it as a whole. It is incredible and indeed, certainly does 'dérange' the eye.

At the time, cast iron was generally used in factories and stations...Guimard used it to create the gates and entrances to this superb building. The magnificent entrance sums up Guimard more than anything else: the carved stonework, the two columns, the design of the door and the colours (which were said in a video I just watched given by Netprof, to portray the colours of the German uniforms...). You can see cast iron everywhere on the facade - service stairs as well as balconies and the bow windows, all painted in pale green. Useful as well as decorative. The bow windows themselves sit upon  fantastic carved stone...the angry cat, for example.

There are even stylised, hybrid monsters (seahorses, I think, more than monsters) that seem to be climbing up and attacking the building. Guimard wanted, says my guidebook, to have chimeras. The public saw them as scarey demons and called the Castel 'the house of the devils'. He certainly had a taste that was way out of the ordinary. The seahorses/monsters  were made by the sculptor, glass blower and ceramist Ringel d'Illzach from Alsace.

Devils and masks are everywhere, that one cannot deny, and its easy to see why the neighbours were a little unnerved, walking past it every day, just as I was further on in avenue Mozart.  They are on the doors, windows and balconies. Apparently they are all over the inside too. They decorate beautifully though, however ugly they may appear, even if they caused the old dears of the quartier to cross themselves as they passed by.

Guimard was also a decorator, and apparently, when he created a building, he didn't just busy himself with the exterior, but with everything else as well. And when I say 'everything else', I really do mean that - from the furniture to the keyholes and from the lights to the door handles. The entrance is decorated with glazed sandstone in tones of green that blend perfectly.

Guimard won first prize at the 1er Concours de Facades de la Ville de Paris with this building. He was so proud that he had the news sculpted into the stone of the Castel as a signature stone.

Past rue Agar I went up to avenue Mozart, my old street, to the house I had avoided so often. I still don't like it. It still gives me the creeps.

Following his marriage to Adeline Oppenheim, the daughter of the New York financier and artist up to a point, Guimard designed a townhouse between 1910 and 1912. He acquired some land on avenue Mozart, pretty small considering his usual lavishness, to build the house of his dreams. Instead of the size upsetting him and curbing his creativity, it seemd to have quite the adverse effect, for this time, he was financing the project himself. He took 'particular' care with the doorway, which is beautifully sculpted with his monogramme. This entrance seems to have been recently restored and the building can be visited on rendezvous. I'm afraid I wasn't brave enough to do that, for it really does disturb me, this house!

Guimard even designed his bride-to-be's wedding dress...and shoes!  It's not difficult then, to imagine the care he took with his townhouse, from furniture to floor, curtains to chandeliers...I await Nicole's return to Paris without whom a depthier tour is impossible!

Next stop, rue de Grenelle, number 151... our Lavirotte! It was his first work and is less adventurous than the one on avenue Rapp that bowled us over (see album Lavirotte left). Built in 1889, there are no mad flurries of imagination, but it's gorgeous all the same. How I love this architect...Paris's answer to Gaudi, really. The door is magnificent with the lizard munching the corn on the cob, and the first floor window is superb.

Back to 3, square Rapp again because I was afraid to have forgotten it in the roar of 29, av. Rapp! There it was, still there (of course!), nestled away at the end of the cul de sac. The lift shaft is apparently, amazing, but once again, noone was coming out and so I couldn't get in to have a nose... What I hadn't noticed before is that every balcony is different and there's very little symmetry (says the guidebook...duh...I hadn't noticed til I paid attention and studied the facade - they are right. there's none at all and true enough, every balcony really is different). Lavirotte certainly wasn't shy of overload! I thought Rococo was the style that squidged as much as possible into one place and mixed kitsche with classic...is he not more Rococo than Art Nouveau? What do I know? I'm totally unschooled in anything concerning architecture. But as Winnie the Pooh said, "I like what I know and I know what I like".

Then disaster struck - my camera batteries went flat. Beeeeeeeeep! Said the camera and beep said I, too, as such expletives are unprintable...so, I am now having to rely on internet for the pix. So sorry.

On the home stretch now, at 33, rue du Champs-de-Mars. The building was named 'maison des arums' (the house of lillies) because the architect, Octave Raquin, was very generous with the aforementioned, all over the facade. It is so overdone that I didn't quite know where to look first. It is, said my guidebook, a masterpiece of Parisian Art Nouveau. To me, it is indeed a masterpiece, but the Art Nouveau foxes me somewhat. I was perhaps too dizzy with all there was to absorb to find what I should have found. Perhaps in the windows and the roof? The doorway is certainly typical of the style. Even I could see that! I really have to do a course on all these styles. I'm confused, since every country has its own styles, doesn't it. I mean, compare Art Nouveau in Timisoara with Art Nouveau in Paris...chalk and cheese!

I retired to a street café for a double expresso and a revision of my guidebook before I made my way back to 145...."Stoooooooooooooooooooooop! You have to go back to the 8è" yelled my guidebook! "You can't miss the Lalique building!" I paid for my coffee and jumped on a bus, made a change to another and found myself at Francois 1er, not so far away, 40, Cours Albert 1er near the Armenian church....wow! Glad my guidebook had bawled at me.

As I mentioned, camera was kaput and so I have swiped pix from internet - Paris1900 blog, I'm so sorry to have done so without asking. There were two I simply couldn't resist - your photos are absolutely wonderful, and I love your blog. Do you know, you're the only one really who writes of Lavirotte in any detail? But I digress: 40, cours Albert 1er... the building isn't named after the architects Louis and Alfred Feine who built it, but after the chap who ordered it. My guidebook says it has Neo-gothic influence - I guess so. Check out the pinnacles crowning it. It served as a studio and a sales room for its owner.

The real masterpiece of the building, which still has apartments today, is the front door. After becoming essentially the inventor of modern jewellery - what amazing collections, mostly for Sarah Bernhardt (the wrong Sarah, but never mind!) - he worked more and more with glass and almost took on a second career as master glazier. What more evidence does one need than this incredible door? His favourite motifs (branches, flowers) are found all over the balconies and in the surrounding stonework - brambles and pinecones everywhere. how I could strangle my camera!!

And FINALLY, avenue Wagram for another Lavirotte. Let's end the tour with the favourite! 34, avenue Wagram. Oof! It's his most famous building along with 29, av. Rapp. Despite the small space belonging to the person who ordered it, Lavirotte designed a narrow and slender chef d'oeuvre in 1904. As with his other buildings, he called upon the ceramist Alexandre Bigot, who completely covered the facade in glazed bricks and ceramics. It was apparently a 'house of ill repute' if rumours are to be believed (why not?! It's more fun!). It was very much appreciated by tourists who didn't have the means to pay the huge bills in the hotels nearer the Champs Elysées and Etoile! You get their point!

Floral motifs are everywhere, notably around the bow windows. As always with Lavirotte, animals are to be found too. Beetles, on this building, says the book, but I couldn't see any.

And then, I decided I had better get to the supermarket and buy my veg for the slimming soup, get back to the ranch and do chores that were awaiting - had been awaiting all the week in actual fact. What sadness to get back to reality.

Lovely to have you with me for a morning. Hope you enjoyed it, too!