Henry van de Velde: Designing Modernism

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By Katherine M. Kuenzli

“Katherine Kuenzli offers an original portrait of van de Velde—his personality, ideals, and work—through exemplary research and superb illustrations.”—Harry Mallgrave, Illinois Institute of Technology

“Kuenzli fills a major gap ambitiously and successfully, and she convincingly shows how existing narratives need to be revised as a result.”—Frederic J. Schwartz, University College London

The painter, designer, and architect Henry van de Velde (1863–1957) played a crucial role in expanding modernist aesthetics beyond Paris and beyond painting. Opposing growing nationalism around 1900, he sought to make painting the basis of an aesthetic that transcended boundaries between the arts and between nations through his work in Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Van de Velde’s designs for homes, museums, and theaters received international recognition. The artist, often associated with the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil, developed a style of abstraction that he taught in his School of Applied Arts in Weimar, the immediate precursor of and model for the Bauhaus. As a leading member of the German Werkbund, he helped shaped the fields of modern architecture and design. This long-awaited book, the first major work on van de Velde in English, firmly positions him as one of the twentieth century’s most influential artists and an essential voice within the modern movement.

Hardcover
240 pages
Yale University Press, 2019
8.5 x 0.8 x 11 inches
ISBN 9780300226669
Architecture, Modernism, Art Nouveau