The Rubens House > Museum > House and garden > Architecture
Architecture
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You step inside the Rubens House as Rubens wanted to: through the main porchway, which gives on to the elegant inner courtyard.
Here the visitor is struck by a luxuriant language of symbols in the Italian facade and the baroque gate. This contrasts starkly with the traditional style of the 16th-century residence. The open gallery and the artist’s studio with the big bow windows connect the house and the workshop in the same luxuriant architectural style. The whole makes it clear that the exterior facade giving on to the Wapper must not have been of much interest to Rubens.
His stay in Italy (1600-1608) inspired the artist not only as regards his painting oeuvre, but also in his ideas of architecture. This is clearly visible in the facade of the studio, which was largely executed by Rubens in trompe l'oeil and conceived in a classical, humanist tradition. With the restoration, these painted representations were carried out in bas-relief.