Velde, Henri van de [key], 1863–1957, Belgian designer and architect. Beginning as a painter, critic, and crafts designer in Belgium and in France, he received his first great acclaim for the interiors that he exhibited at Dresden in 1897. Van de Velde played a leading role in the development of Jugendstil, the German equivalent of art nouveau. His designs for furniture and tableware are of especially high quality. With ideas deriving in part from Ruskin and William Morris, he taught at his own school, the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts. Van de Velde's architectural activity was considerable. His best work is found in his own house near Brussels (1895) and in the studio building for his school at Weimar (1906), but his architecture never had the quality, importance, or influence of his crafts and his numerous writings. His first book was Die Renaissance im modernen Kunstgewerbe (1901).
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