Paul Hankar
Encyclopedia
Paul Hankar was a Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 and designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...

 who, along with Victor Horta
Victor Horta
Victor, Baron Horta was a Belgian architect and designer. John Julius Norwich described him as "undoubtedly the key European Art Nouveau architect." Indeed, Horta is one of the most important names in Art Nouveau architecture; the construction of his Hôtel Tassel in Brussels in 1892-3 means that...

 and Henry Van de Velde
Henry van de Velde
Henry Clemens Van de Velde was a Belgian Flemish painter, architect and interior designer. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar he could be considered one of the main founders and representatives of Art Nouveau in Belgium...

, is considered one of the principal architects to work in the Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

 style in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 at the turn of the twentieth century.

Formative Studies

Hankar was born at Frameries
Frameries
Frameries is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On June 21st 2011 Frameries had a total population of about 20,652...

. He began his career as a sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

. He studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
The Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels is an art school, founded in 1711.The faculty and alumni of ARBA include some of the most famous names in Belgian painting, sculpture, and architecture: James Ensor, Rene Magritte, and Paul Delvaux...

 in Brussels, where he met a fellow student named Victor Horta, with whom he became fast friends. Like Horta, Hankar studied closely the techniques of forged iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 which he would later use in many of his projects.

Early career

In 1888, Hankar began his activity as an architect and furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 designer in Brussels and collaborated with the interior designer Adolphe Crespin. One well-known poster by Crespin from about 1893 advertises Hankar's practice on the rue Defacqz in Brussels. He then was commissioned to design the Palacio de Chávarri in Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

, Spain, which was constructed for the businessman Víctor Chávarri in 1889.

Five years later, in 1893, he built his own house, which along with Victor Horta's Hôtel Tassel
Hôtel Tassel
The Hotel Tassel is a town house built by Victor Horta in Brussels for the Belgian scientist and professor Emile Tassel in 1893-1894. It is generally considered as the first true Art Nouveau building, because of its highly innovative plan and its ground breaking use of materials and decoration...

 (constructed at the same time) is considered one of the first two houses in the world built in the Art Nouveau style.

Mature Work

In 1896, Hankar presented a project for a « Cité des Artistes » ("Artists' City") for the seaside town of Westende
Westende
Westende is a town in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, and in the Flemish province of West-Flanders. It lies on the Belgian coast, also called Flemish coast. It used to be the far west of the island Testerep which lay along the Belgian coast....

, in which he conceived of an artists' cooperative with housing and studios. Though the project never was realized, five years later it would inspire the artists of the Darmstadt Artists' Colony
Darmstadt Artists' Colony
The Darmstadt Artists’ Colony refers both to a group of artists as well as to the buildings in Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt in which these artists lived and worked...

 in Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

, Germany, and the artists of the Vienna Secession
Vienna Secession
The Vienna Secession was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects...

.

For the 1897 World's Fair in Brussels
Brussels International (1897)
The Brussels International Exposition of 1897 was a World's Fair held in Brussels, Belgium, from May 10, 1897 through November 8, 1897...

, Hankar, along with Henry Van de Velde, Gustave Serrurier-Bovy
Gustave Serrurier-Bovy
Gustave Serrurier-Bovy was a Belgian architect and furniture designer. He is credited with creating the Art Nouveau style, coined as a style in Paris by Bing....

 (an Art Nouveau architect and designer from Liège
Liège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....

), and Georges Hobé, was charged with the design for the Congo section, which became known for its full employment of the Art Nouveau. In the same year, Hankar participated in the colonial exposition at Tervuren
Tervuren
Tervuren is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Duisburg, Tervuren, Vossem and Moorsel. On January 1, 2006, Tervuren had a total population of 20,636...

, Belgium, for which he was responsible for the coordination of the works of several artisans and furniture designers. He died at Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

.

The greater part of Hankar's buildings are found in Brussels. Besides those mentioned above, they include:
  • Maison Zegers-Regnard (1895)
  • Maison and Pharmacy Peeters (1896)
  • Hôtel Renkin (1897, destroyed)
  • Hôtel Kleyer (1898)
  • Maison Bartholomé and its Studio (1898, destroyed)
  • Niguet Haberdashery (1899)
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