Passage Interdit: GesamtkunstwerkGesamtkunstwerk—the concept that a total work of art is greater than its parts—influenced contemporary art and architecture through the 20th century.
Passage Interdit: GesamtkunstwerkGesamtkunstwerk—the concept that a total work of art is greater than its parts—influenced contemporary art and architecture through the 20th century.
Set back from the broad, tree-lined Avenue de Tervueren in a well-to-do district of Brussels, the Palais Stoclet can be seen from a distance, as it was meant to be, though it doesn’t come right out and say it. With its bare-faced front and regular punches of delicate windows, it isn’t the palais’s conservatory that first catches your eye nor is it the double-height entrance loggia topped by a brassy statue of Athena. Dripping with garlands and topped by four imposing bronze male nudes standing guard, the most arresting feature of the palais is its massive tower. But while it may draw your attention as a beacon set against a sea of traffic, it, like a lighthouse, at the same time sends a clear message: “Go away.”
The palais was originally built between 1905 and 1911 for the w...
