One of the initial things we fell for in the house was the Jugendstil facade, it obviously also being the first thing we saw... However, all the art history in school really didn't pay off and I kept forgetting what era it was, let alone the name. So we decided to look it up last night.
Jugendstil is defined as a style of architecture or decorative art similar to the French Art Nouveau. Art Nouveau advocated the use of highly-stylized nature as the source of inspiration and expanded the "natural" repertoire to embrace seaweed, grasses, and insects. Correspondingly organic forms, curved lines, especially floral or vegetal, and the like, were used. Art Nouveau did not negate the machine, as other movements such as the Arts and Crafts Movement, but used it to an advantage. For sculpture the principle materials employed were glass and wrought iron, leading to sculpturesque quality even in architecture (Source: Wikipedia).
Interesting! We are slowly moving towards the idea of incorporating some Jugendstil elements on the inside of the house as well. Just have to find some original stuff that we can re-use. We are getting more and more excited about this house!
Googling, we also discovered a link to a historic site about Den Haag. And our house also featured in there (http://historie.denhaag.org/anvov2.htm), with the facade being a fine example of Jugendstil! It is so nice to have a house with history! :-)
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