Victor Horta was born in Ghent, Belgium, on 6 January 1861. His father was a master shoemaker, who, as Horta recalled, considered craftsmanship a high form of art. The young Horta began by studying music at the Ghent Conservatory. He was expelled for misbehaviour and went instead to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. At the Ghent Conservatory an aula is named after him now. When he was seventeen he moved to Paris and found work with architect and designer Jules Debuysson.