Lobby & Staircase, Hotel Tassel, Victor Horta, 1892
Mondays, March 31, April 7, 14 & 21, 2025
7:30 PM
The international art movement known as Art Nouveau flourished from the early 1890s to 1914. Rejecting historical references and traditional geometric forms, it featured florid vegetation, sinuous lines, and asymmetry. Although the design approach encompassed all visual art forms, it was most prevalent in architecture and the decorative arts. Furniture, mirrors, metalwork, art glass, carved plaster, and intricate paneling all featured the signature “whiplash” lines of Art Nouveau. Originating in Brussels, and highlighted in the Exposition Universelle of 1900 (better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition), the style is strongly associated with the wealthy and fashionable.
Popularized in smaller cities, the style easily integrated into new building types—elegant apartments, boutique retail, brasseries, bistros, and cabarets—associated with sophisticated urbanization.
In four richly illustrated lectures, this series will examine the style’s Belgian origins and its regional variations in Paris, Vienna, and Barcelona during the 1890–1915 period.
March 31: Art Nouveau Origins: Brussels
Meet Victor Horta, Paul Hankar, and Henri van de Velde who originated the Art Nouveau style in Brussels. The movement elevated “craft” to an “art” and unified all art forms. In using modern materials and construction techniques, it eliminated historicism while emphasizing nature and movement through use of the whiplash line. Open floor plans and expansive use of glass, mirrors, and electricity brought transparency and spatial fluidity to once dark and constricted interiors.
April 7: The Belle Époque: Paris
The style gained popularity through exposure at the Paris Exposition. French architects Hector Guimard, Jules Lavirotte, and Frantz Jourdain experimented with optics, transparency, motion, and point of view. Decorative artists, like Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, and Georges de Feure, contributed furniture, glass, and metalwork that integrated into the overall design, while jewelry, paintings, and poster design continued to use Art Nouveau techniques independent of architecture.
April 14: Austrian Art Nouveau: Vienna
The waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire coincided with a flourishing of Belle Époque artistic expressions in Eastern Europe. By the mid-1890s, the experimental Vienna Secession advocated for integrated design, while the “Wagner School” (named after Otto Koloman Wagner) supported a modern architecture where form followed function. Rebuilding, due to modernization, of Vienna led to entire sections of the city built in the Art Nouveau style. Artisans of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshops) influenced the later Bauhaus, American Art Deco, Scandinavian Modernism, and Italian Craft and Design.
April 21: Catalan Gothic Art Nouveau: Barcelona
Architect Antonio Gaudí was the greatest exponent of Catalan modernism. Influenced by neo-Gothic techniques and orientalism, he forged a unique organic style inspired by the complex geometry of natural forms. Although his very long career predates and postdates Art Nouveau’s heyday, his most original works coincide with the 1890–1915 period of this lecture series. His experimental work with hyperboloid and paraboloid arches influenced mid-century modernism, High Tech, postmodernism, and Deconstructivism.
About Diane Kane
A specialist in 19th and 20th century American architecture and urban planning, Dr. Kane has taught Western and American art and architectural history and planning to both professional and general interest audiences for over 35 years. Institutions include the NewSchool of Architecture & Design, Design Institute of San Diego, San Diego State University, Cal Poly Pomona, UC San Diego, and UCLA Extension. Retired since 2007, she has travelled the world, visiting all 50 states and over 110 countries. This has sparked an interest in non-Western architecture and cross-cultural transference and innovation through lectures at Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning. In 2024, Dr. Kane received a SOHO Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in preservation and planning and a Jewel Award from the La Jolla Historical Society for her work on the La Jolla Park Coastal Historical District's nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.
Tickets: $56/76
The lecture will be in person at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. There are no physical tickets for this event. Your name will be on an attendee list at the front door. Doors open at 7 p.m. Seating is first-come; first-served. This event will be presented in compliance with State of California and County of San Diego health regulations as applicable at the time of the lecture.