Saturday, October 12, 2019

Art Nouveau Doors

Art Nouveau architects loved fancy doors. This one is at 29 Avenue Rapp in Paris and you see it posted often with the tag "best door in Paris." It was designed by Jules Lavirotte in 1899.

But not all are so over the top. This is 42 rue Belle Vue, Brussels, by Ernest Blerot.



Ornate or comparatively simple, I love the determination to make a door something other than a utilitarian gateway.



 At the time - mostly 1890-1914 - these seemed "modern," part of the age of automobiles, airplanes, and skyscrapers; what happened to these wonderful impulses that left us with a "modern" style that is so cold and barren?

Actually if you are a millionaire you can buy a door something like one of these for your mansion, so they are coming back for that niche. But public architecture remains sterile.


At least we still have these to admire.

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1 comment:

G. Verloren said...

Actually if you are a millionaire you can buy a door something like one of these for your mansion, so they are coming back for that niche. But public architecture remains sterile.

It's almost as if public architecture is paid for out of public taxes, which people are loathe to see spent on mere decoration, especially when there's already not enough to go around for purely utilitarian uses.

It also doesn't help that while our citizens are primed to complain about spending money on public decorations, we happily ignore the trillions we spend on the most expensive military in the entire world, as expensive as the dozen next most expensive militaries combined. There's always more billions available for killing foreigners overseas, but try finding money for basic national infrastructure and maintenance, much less wholly decorative embellishments.

October 12, 2019 at 11:30 AM

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