Il prototipo dimenticato. Square Jasmin di Hector Guimard tra sperimentazione costruttiva e mancate strategie di patrimonializzazione / The forgotten prototype: Hector Guimard’s Square Jasmin between constructive experimentation and failed heritage strategies

Abstract

In Paris’s 16th arrondissement, Hector Guimard – best known for his Art Nouveau works—built in 1922 his only prototype of a prefabricated housing system: the hôtel particulier at Square Jasmin. The result of sustained research on standardization, construction economy, and industrialized building, the house represents a mature synthesis of aesthetics, technique, and function, positioning Guimard as an interpreter of an ‘alternative modernity’. Despite its exceptional historical and design value – documented by 13 patents and extensive graphic material – the building is today in severe disrepair, lacking formal heritage protection and largely unknown to the public. This study questions the reasons for its exclusion from recognized heritage, highlighting the fragile transmission of value in experimental works. The critical analysis of Square Jasmin sheds light on the limits of current heritage practices, particularly regarding early 20th-century architectures that escape canonical definitions of ‘modern’, and calls for new criteria and tools to acknowledge their technical, historical, and symbolic complexity.