Guimard, Hector( 1867 – 1942 )
Design for a chimney (Cheminée et troumeau pour Castel-Beranger), c. 1897 , Musée des Arts
Décoratifs, INV.GP 508 , Cl. 11438 , 7 9. 5 in.Hector Guimard was born in Lyons and left at the early age of fifteen to study at the Ecole des Arts
Décoratifs. He attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before building numerous houses in the
Auteuil quarter of Paris. The project that launched his career was the apartment building Castel
Béranger ( 1894 – 1898 ), featuring a façade of various materials and proficient use of ironwork. At this
crucial point in his career ( 1894 – 1895 ) he traveled to England, obtaining extensive knowledge of the
works of the English designers Voysey and Crane. He also visited Art Nouveau buildings in Belgium,
met with Victor Horta, and viewed the Tassel House under construction. Guimard saw the Belgian
architects’ use of cast iron and how these techniques emphasized lightness and line (Dunster, 1978 ).
In step with other Art Nouveau artists, Guimard was interested in expressing the forces of nature
with repetitive graceful lines, often replicating masks and seahorses (Van Vynckt, 1993 ). Although
Guimard did not write extensively about his work, he adhered to three principles that guided his
design: logic (the conditions), harmony (the context and requirements), and sentiment (combining
logic and harmony to find expression) (Dunster, 1978 ). His architectural work has been most identi-
fied with the Metro Station entrances he designed for Paris, completed in 1901. Other projects of
renown include the Ecole du Sacré-Coeur, finished in 1895 , the Humbert de Romans Concert Hall,
and numerous domestic projects.
Guimard’s interpretation of Art Nouveau integrated decoration, structure, and form; he was par-
ticularly concerned with the qualities of line. The critic Henri Frantz wrote that Guimard’s use of
ornament avoided borrowing directly from natural forms but rather ‘ ... he gets all his effects from
the use of “line” or combinations of lines’ (Dunster, 1978 , p. 9 ). Consistent with this philosophy,
this sketch for a chimney and pierglass for his office depended entirely on lines (Figure 5. 6 ). It shows
nervous parallel lines defining one half of the fireplace. Guimard used these lines to profile the form,
concentrating on the edges, thus avoiding texture or massing. Sketched very quickly, the pen marks
become squiggles or snap back on themselves – a sort of ‘whiplash’ ornamentation. These lines
overlap and intersect as Guimard realized the curve imagined in his mind’s eye, or refined the curve
once viewed. Called by Ernst Gombrich ‘making and matching,’ this comparison causes the repeti-
tion of the parallel marks as he critically assesses one line and responded with another to correct it
(1989,p. 29 ).
The inherent qualities of the media are united with Guimard’s conceptual approach. The flowing
veins of ink mimic the fluid movements of decoration, suggesting that the rendering technique itself
may have informed the outcome of the architecture. The undulating movement of the strokes may
have drawn themselves as much as being created by Guimard. Similar to a doodle, a line begun is easy
to continue. The curved lines may reflect the gesture of his hands relying on the forms of nature to
guide him. To the lower left of the sketch is a contorted face, giving this portion of the page an eerie,
anthropomorphic quality. The abstraction of the wide mouth and large eye reveals how the Art
Nouveau artists induced associative expression. The overall appearance of the sketch is sparse, provid-
ing only the necessary information. Considering the exuberance of ornament practiced by the Art
Nouveau artists, this study maintains a noticeably more restrained attitude.H5719-Ch05.qxd 7/15/05 3:39 PM Page 127