Distinguished by their lavish sculpture, metalwork or tile facades, Art Nouveau buildings certainly stand out. Art Nouveau buildings are unique, audacious and inspirational. Rejecting historic styles, considered inappropriate for an era driven by progress, architects and designers sought a new vocabulary of architectural forms. Their vision was shaped by modern materials and innovative technologies, including iron, glass and ceramics. A truly democratic style, Art Nouveau transformed life on the eve of the twentieth century and still captivates our imaginations today. Beautifully illustrated, this book explains how the new style came into being, its rationale and why it is known by so many different names: French Art Nouveau, German Jugendstil, Viennese Secession, Catalan Modernisme, Italian Liberty and Portuguese Arte Nova. It covers the key architects and designers associated with the style; Victor Horta in Brussels, Hector Guimard in Paris, Antoni Gaudi on Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna, Odon Lechner in Budapest and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow. There are detailed descriptions and stunning photographs of buildings to be found in Brussels, Paris, Nancy, Darmstadt, Vienna, Budapest, Barcelona, Milan, Turin and Aveiro. Finally, it covers the decorative arts, stained glass, tiles and metalwork that make Art Nouveau buildings so distinctive.

Art Nouveau gives a name to the decorative and architectural style developed in the 1880s and 1890s in the West. Born in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and to the creative vacuum it left behind, Art Nouveau was at the heart of a “renaissance” in the decorative arts. The primary objective of the movement was the creation of a new aesthetic of nature through a return to the study of natural subjects. In order to achieve this, artists such as Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Antoni Gaudí, Jan Toorop, and William Morris favoured innovation in technique and novelty of forms. After its triumph at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900, the trend continued and has inspired many artists ever since. Art Deco, the successor of Art Nouveau, appeared after World War II.