Which architect designed the Palais Stoclet in Brussels, an Art Nouveau masterpiece?

Josef Hoffmann designed the Palais Stoclet in Brussels.

Hoffmann was an Austrian architect and a founding member of the Vienna Secession. He designed the residence for the Belgian financier and art collector Adolphe Stoclet, who commissioned it as a private mansion in Brussels. Construction took place from 1905 to 1911.

The building is celebrated as a Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art,” because its architecture, interiors, furniture, gardens, fittings, and decorative details were conceived as a unified design. Hoffmann’s Wiener Werkstätte collaborators helped realize the interiors, while Gustav Klimt designed the celebrated mosaic frieze for the dining room.

The Palais Stoclet is often grouped with Art Nouveau, but its strict geometry and Viennese Secession character also point toward Art Deco and modernism. That stylistic transition can make attribution confusing: Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde were major Belgian Art Nouveau figures, while Otto Wagner was another important Austrian architect, but none designed this house. The Stoclet family still owns the building, which is not generally open to the public.