Wednesday 23 May 2012

Nancy Art Nouveau houses in Saurupt


Lillian :  At the tourist office in Nancy you can hire an Audio guide to their Art Nouveau architecture, and if you follow the instructions without getting too lost, you'll see lovely buildings and hear all about them.  It is excellent value though it does feel a little strange to wander about the streets with an Audio guide held to your ear - they are just like the ones you hire in Art Galleries!  

Part of the Audio tour took us into the suburbs of Nancy - to Saurupt to see some really gorgeous Art Nouveau houses.


This is the Villa Henri-Emmanuel Lang (1905-1906), the architect was Lucien Weissenburger.

Audrey :  It is all the details that make these houses so lovely ...  and like us, those Art Nouveau artistes liked towers and turrets.


Audrey :  They also liked wonderfully fancy chimneys.










Lillian :  This villa has lots of different wall treatments - render, dressed stone, rough stone for the outer wall & striped brickwork.

The Entry


Brickwork, tiles & lead-light


















Round the side - this bow window with a balcony on top and fantastic wood-work.

 

Audrey :  Reminds me of a pirate ship somehow ...


Well the next house we saw was the Villa Marguerite, 1903-05 - the architects were Joseph Hornecker (he also designed Nancy's Opera House)  & Henri Gutton.






 



Lillian :  A tower, balconies and just about every shape of window you can think of!
















Audrey :  Such pretty iron-work and an oval port-hole.

Audrey :  French cyclists ... in front of the next Villa on the tour



 This dates from 1902 - 04, designed by Émile André.












Glycine is French for Wisteria - but the Wisteria was across the road - growing all over the Villa Les Roches ...

Lillian :  Trans. The Rocks - appropriate as the walls of this house are of undressed stone.  Émile André. was the architect of this house too - it is very different from its 'sister' across the road.
Gate Post


















Lillian :  Les Roches had a painted frieze under the eaves - unfortunately now rather faded.






 Audrey :  Our people looked for this last building for ages and had given up trying to find it when ... there it was!

Maison Geschwindammer, 1905, by Henri Gutton & Joseph Hornecker (like the Villa Marguerite).

It has gorgeous mosaic - with golden tiles.
 







Iron-work at main door-way
another Door-way

Lillian :  The details as you look up - from that main door-way
Painted Detail






Lillian :  This is the  balcony in front of the window that is framed by the lovely mosaic - ceramic (I think) with poppy heads.   In our next post we'll show some more architectural details - some Art Nouveau, some Art Deco ...


1 comment:

  1. I stumbled on this post when searching for mosaics. This must be an amazing place to visit !

    ReplyDelete