Xavier Schoellkopf ' Schoellkopf's buildings mostly consist…
1900 CE to 1911 CE
Although Guadet and Paulin had distinguished themselves as rather conservative designers, Schoellkopf has become one of the leading practitioners of the upstart new style that took hold in Paris during the 1890s, Art Nouveau, which is characterized by its asymmetry, emphasis on line, whiplash and irregular curves, movement, and in many cases its frank use of iron, glass, and modern, non-traditional materials.
Very little survives of Schoellkopf's own words about architecture.
In one, published in the review L'Art décoratif in 1901, he discloses that he hopes to create a new kind of building adapted to modern needs that might be able to capture the building's "raw character" that he claims is lost upon its completion.
This same year, he completes probably his best-known work, the townhouse on the avenue d'Iéna for the singer and cabaret performer Yvette Guilbert (now demolished), whose façade might be described as a wedding cake of arabesques and contours translated into stone.
Schoellkopf's career virtually parallels that of Art Nouveau's existence in Paris, as he launched his practice at almost exactly the same time that the style arrived in the city, and dies just as the fad's popularity had expired, just before the outbreak of the First World War.
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