orn in Ghent, Horta was first attracted to the architectural profession when he helped his uncle on a building site at the age of twelve.
Horta had a great interest in music since childhood and, in 1873, went to study musical theory at the Ghent Conservatory. After being expelled for bad behaviour he joined the Department of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent instead.]In 1878 Horta left for Paris, finding work with architect and designer Jules Debuysson in Montmartre. There he was inspired by the emerging impressionist and pointillist artists, and also by the possibilities of working in iron and glass.
When Horta's father died in 1880, he returned to Belgium and moved to Brussels, married his first wife, with whom he later fathered two daughters, and went to study architecture at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. In Brussels Horta built a friendship with Paul Hankar, who would later also embrace Art Nouveau. Horta did well in his studies and was taken on as an assistant by his professor Alphonse Balat, architect to Leopold II of Belgium. Together they designed the royal Greenhouses of Laeken, Horta's first work to utilise glass and iron.
In 1884 Horta won the first Prix Godecharle to be awarded for Architecture (for his unbuilt design for Parliament), as well as the Grand Prix in architecture on leaving the Royal Academy.