{"word_count": 422, "character_count": 2919}
Mapping the reception of Victor Horta: the blurring boundaries of architectural criticism, theory and historyDirk Van de VijerAssociate professor, Department of History of Art, Utrecht UniversityFrom 1895 to 1905, Horta stood at the peak of his fame. From the firsts publication of House Tassel in L’Emulation, upto the honoring of his central place in the history of architecture at 75th anniversary of Belgium’s independance, a broad variety of authors, from different professional and geographical backgrounds, explored multiple narratives on the architect and his work in different media, adressing plural ‘publics’.Having mapped the reception of the architect’s work in this ‘golden decade’ for my forthcoming book on Victor Horta, this call for papers inspired me to rethink and to reframe these pluriform and often contradictory texts, that blur the boundaries of architectural criticism, theory and history. This paper wants to unpick the relationship between the different narratives on the architect and his work, and their authors’ backgrounds. It ambitions to explain the evaluation criteria of the different authors in their judgments on Horta’s work, to relate these  to the medium, in which they are published, and to the public they are adressed to?  (To name someeauthors: Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert Julius Meier Graefe, Hector Guimard, Ludwig Hevesi, Gustave Kahn, Jean Lahor Octave Maus, Sander Pierron, Henry Van de Velde, etc.) In order to answer this question, I will dive into different aspects on the background of the authors (their professional engagments [dealer-critic, decorative art journal editor, architect-writer, etc.], geographical background and, eventual transnational activity [cfr. a German authors, working in France, while traveling all over Europe]), on the nature and context of their discourses (arts-and-crafts-reform, Viollet-le-Duc, cult of the individual artist and client, ‘esthétique de la rue’, ‘Freie Kunst’, etc.), on the profile of the publications (architectural journal, non illustrated art journal, illustrated decorative arts journal/life style magazine, newspaper press, ‘small journals’, booklets) and the publics they cater (including its ‘modern’ fragmentation  related to ideology  and class).&#160;Dirk Van de Vijver is associate professor architectural history 19th and 20th century at the department of History and Art History at Utrecht University. He is a trained engineer-architect (Leuven University) and obtained a D.E.A. in art history at the Université de Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne. His 2000  PhD is entitled Les relations franco-belges dans l’architecture des Pays-Bas méridionaux 1750-1830. In 2003 He published the book Ingenieurs en architecten op de drempel van een nieuwe tijd 1750-1830 (Leuven Univesity Press). He published in the domain of architectural history and construction history. At the moment, he prepares a book on Victor Horta.