Guimard, Hector

Hector Guimard, in full Hector-Germain Guimard, (born March 10, 1867, Lyon, France—died May 20, 1942, New York, New York, U.S.), architect, decorator, and furniture designer, probably the best-known French representative of Art Nouveau.

Guimard studied and later taught at the School of Decorative Arts and at the École des Beaux-Arts (“School of Fine Arts”) in Paris. Although much of his work is more engineering than architecture, he considered himself an architecte d’art. His Castel Béranger apartment building at 16 rue La Fontaine, Passy, Paris (1894–98), was one of the first Art Nouveau edifices outside Belgium, where the style originated. Several entrance structures (1898–1901) for the Paris Métro (subway), of cast iron in plantlike forms, are his best-known works. The Place de la Bastille station suggests Chinese pagoda architecture as well as Art Nouveau. The elevations and decorative ironwork of his apartment houses at 17–21 and 60 rue La Fontaine (1911) are tasteful and restrained. More bizarre, perhaps because its setting permitted a freer treatment, is the Castel Henriette in Sèvres (1903). Guimard also designed an Art Nouveau synagogue, at 10 rue Pavée, Paris (1913).