History

Adolphe Stoclet (1871–1949) worked as a banking executive and married Suzanne Stevens, daughter of the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens. The couple spent extended periods in Vienna in the early 1900s, where Adolphe became closely acquainted with the Secession circle. When his father died in 1904 and left him a major inheritance, Stoclet resolved to build a house that would embody the Wiener Werkstatte philosophy of total design.

Hoffmann designed the exterior as a composition of white Solnhofen limestone slabs trimmed with gilt bronze mouldings, a stark geometry that anticipated the International Style by two decades. Four gilded figurative sculptures by Franz Metzner crown the tower. The interior was a collaboration on a scale rarely attempted: Hoffmann and Koloman Moser designed all furnishings and fittings; Klimt was commissioned for the dining room, producing cartoons in gouache and gold foil that were then executed in Brussels by the firm Loffler in mosaic, enamel, and semi-precious stone.

The Stoclet family retained the property intact through the twentieth century. No interior photographs were published until after Adolphe Stoclet death in 1949, preserving an almost mythological quality around the Klimt frieze. UNESCO inscribed the Palais in 2009, citing its exceptional testimony to the ideal of the total artwork and the completeness of its surviving materials. The house remains in Stoclet family ownership and is not open to visitors.