In rejection of the traditional historism prevailing in art nouveau of nature at the time, ornaments and abstract lines and later geometrical ornaments were used. One of the centres of German art nouveau was Darmstadt.
It was here in 1899 that the Hessian Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig commissioned a living and working sphere developed solely for art nouveau inspired work, named the artists’ colony ‘Mathildenhoehe’, which is still just as impressive today.
Those that formed part of the colony were, amongst others, the architects Josef Maria Olbrich, Peter Behrens and Hans Christiansen. The buildings and interior decoration, which were presented to the public for the first time in 1901, established the so-called Darmstaedt style.
