Stoclet Frieze

The Stoclets hired the architect Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte artistic collective (‘Viennese Workshop’) to design, decorate and furnish a spacious mansion with formal gardens.

The pair were avid art collectors with wide-ranging and eclectic tastes: their collection included work from many periods and cultures, from the Far East to the New World[1] and included Egyptian sculpture, Chinese ceramics and jades, Byzantine icons and jewelry, miniatures from Persia and Armenia, as well as numerous Western medieval paintings.

The designs are decorated with a variety of luxury materials, including marble, ceramic, gilded tiles and enamel along with pearls and other semi-precious stones.

[3] When an official party of Belgian architects visited the Stoclet Palace for the very first time, on 22 September 1912, the excitement amongst it members was great.

Amidst the historicist façades lining the elegant Avenue de Tervueren/Tervurenlaan, the entire ensemble of house, garden and interior – culminating in the dining room with the celebrated Tree of Life frieze by Klimt– struck the Belgian architects as belonging to another world.