11/11/2025
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Villa Majorelle, Nancy, France
It's just a rain drain-but look at the level of detail in Villa Majorelle, Nancy, France (1901–1902)
The Villa Majorelle is a house located at 1 rue Louis-Majorielle in the city of Nancy, France, which was the home and studio of the furniture designer Louis Majorelle. It was designed and built by the architect Henri Sauvage in 1901-1902. The villa is one of the first and most influential examples of the Art Nouveau architectural style in France. It served as a showcase for Majorelle's furniture and the work of other noted decorative artists of the period, including ceramist Alexandre Bigot and stained glass artist Jacques Gruber. It is now owned by the city of Nancy, and is open to the public certain days for tours by reservation.
The house was commissioned by Louis Majorelle (1859-1926), a Nancy furniture designer and manufacturer. His father, Auguste Majorelle, a craftsman who made fine lacquered furniture, had begun the family firm in Nancy in 1860, making and selling finely crafted lacquered furniture, and had been awarded prizes and achieved an international reputation for his work at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878. His son Louis also planned an artistic career, and entered the course of painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1877, when he was only eighteen. His father died two years later, and Louis took over the family firm.
At the time that Louis took over the firm, Nancy was growing rapidly, due largely to the arrival of thousands of French residents of Alsace and parts of Lorraine who left their homes after they became part of Germany following the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. The city grew from 50,000 inhabitants in 1872 to 120,000 in 1911. Many of the new arrivals were prosperous, and they wanted fine furniture for their new homes. Louis Majorelle decided to expand the workshops of the firm, then located in the southern part of Nancy. In 1897 he bought a parcel of 3500 square meters in what was then a rural area west of the city, and built a new factory there. He then planned the construction of his new residence close to the factory, a common practice in that period.
To design his house, Louis chose a young architect recommended by his friends from the Ecole des Beaux Arts; Henri Sauvage, who was only twenty-four. The Villa was his first project. Sauvage was assisted by Lucien Weissenburger (1860-1929), who had designed the nearby factory. Weissenburger went on to design many prominent art nouveau buildings in Nancy, in what became known as the school of Nancy. Majorelle also maintained close relations with artists he had known at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, including the sculptor Alexandre Charpentier (1856-1909) and the painter Francis Jourdain (1876-1958), who collaborated with him on furniture and participated in the decoration of the villa.
When the house was completed in 1902, Majorelle assured that it was widely publicized as an advertisement for his firm and his art. An article in the Paris magazine L'Illustration, accompanied by photographs and plans of the house, described it as "A house made by an artist for an artist" and the summit of modernity. The writer assured the public that the house offered fantasy that was always logical, a sense of comfort, and well-reasoned simplicity. His only criticism concerned the large number of chimneys, which he thought was excessive. Another article by Louis Charles Boileau appeared in the professional journal L'Architecture, which described the house as "a search for a new art pushed here very far; in the construction of a beautiful work..." This was followed by articles in the popular magazines Art et Décoration and l'Art Decoratif by the architect Frantz Jourdain, designer of the department store Le Samaritaine in Paris, which stated that the villa had broken away from reminiscence about the past, replacing it with "art adopted to the realities of life."
The success of the Villa opened an important career for Henri Sauvage. He was commissioned by Majorelle to build a new store in Paris for Majorelle's firm, at a site on Rue de Provence which had previously been the site of the shop L'Art Nouveau of art dealer Siegfried Bing. Sauvage was immediately commissioned to design the decoration of the Café de Paris, and then became one of the pioneers of the Art Deco style in Paris.
Majorelle established his studio on the top floor of the building, with a view of the countryside. He called the house the Villa Jitka, after his wife. At the time of its construction, the house was surrounded by a park of 3.5 hectares, including a one hectare garden in front of the house, a garden the size of Place Stanislaus, the main square of Nancy.
Not long after the construction, Majorelle made modifications to the house. Sauvage had designed a terrace in front of the house, with a ceramic railing by Alexandre Bigot, with a large curved opening extending the terrace into the interior of the building. The interior terrace proved unsuitable in cold weather, and Majorelle had the curved entry replaced by a new room with windows. The beginning of the First World War in August 1914 marked the end of the era of the Art Nouveau, and greatly reduced the business of Majorelle. The furniture factory caught fire and burned in 1916, and in the same year the house and his shop in Nancy were badly damaged by a German aerial bombardment. Majorelle spent most of his time in Paris, using the workshops and factories of his friends.
Majorelle died in Nancy in 1926. After his death, his family could no longer afford to live in the Villa Majorelle, and the house and much of the outlying property were sold off in parcels. Majorelle's factories closed in 1931. The park that surrounded was reduced to a small piece around the house. Majorelle's son, a painter, was in poor health, and decided to move to Marrakesh in Morocco, and took much of the furniture of the house with him. The house was sold to the Department of Highways and Bridges of the French government, and was used as offices, while the interior was considerably modified. The house was not declared a historical monument until January 1975. In November 1996, the property reclassified as a "national patrimony of the 20th century." The house was acquired by the city, only a few rooms still as they were in 1902, and only one is furnished. Much of the house is still used for offices by local organizations.
The house today is supported by the city and by Association des Amis du Musée de l'École de Nancy.
Photography: unknown copyright but posted on Architecture Hub.
