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Unit Iii Arts and Crafts Movement
Unit Iii Arts and Crafts Movement
Introduction:
The Arts and Crafts Movement, which began in England around 1860 and continued
into the first decade of the 20th century, shared many of the ideas of art nouveau. The
movement’s earliest proponents reacted against cheap manufactured goods, which had
flooded shops and filled houses in the second half of the 19th century. The Arts and
Crafts ideal they offered was a spiritual, craft-based alternative, intended to alleviate
industrial production’s degrading effects on the souls of laborers and on the goods
they produced. It emphasized local traditions and materials, and was inspired by
vernacular design—that is, characteristic local building styles that generally were not
created by architects.
Arts and Crafts Movement was a response to the industrial revolution. It was a broad and
diverse movement, incorporating many idealistic themes. Perhaps we should start by
identifying the common beliefs.
English designer William Morris, who led the Arts and Crafts movement, sought to
restore integrity to both architecture and the decorative arts. The Red House (1859) in
Kent, designed for Morris and his family by English architect Philip Webb, demonstrates
the architectural principles at the heart of the English movement. The unpretentious brick
façades were free of ornament, the ground plan was informal and asymmetrical, and the
materials were drawn from the area and assembled with local building techniques.
Spurred by the experience of furnishing his home, Morris set up a studio with several
associates, including Webb and English artists Dante Gabriel Rosetti and Edward Burne-
Jones. They designed everything—from wallpaper to stained glass, books, and teapots—
according to the highest standards of craftsmanship. The idea of the house as a total work
of art, with all of the interior objects designed by the architect, emerged from this studio
and remained standard practice throughout the Arts and Crafts movement.
He also desired to have a "Palace of Art" in which he and his friends could enjoy
producing works of art.
The house is of warm red brick with a steep tiled roof and an emphasis on
natural materials. It was the first domestic dwelling to have stained glass
windows.
The garden is also significant, being an early example of the idea of a garden as
a series of exterior "rooms".
In the United States, it should be noted, the term Arts and Crafts movement is often used
to denote the style of interior design that prevailed between the dominant eras of Art
Nouveau and Art Deco, or roughly the period from 1910 to 1925. During the 1870's,
American Anglophiles became acquainted with the Arts & Crafts Movement, first
introduced through interest in the Gothic Revival and the paintings and writings of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
The Arts & Crafts Movement also shaped American architecture, especially with the
development of the Queen Anne Revival, and with emerging styles that were based on
the "old-fashioned homes" of the American Colonial period: the Shingle Style and the
Old Colony Style.
The first generation of Arts & Crafts artisans employed a diverse expression of styles,
which drew inspiration from England, but also from Japan and from the regional
traditional crafts and architecture of America.
The Country Day School movement, the bungalow style of houses popularized by
Greene and Greene
Mission, Prairie and the California Craftsman styles of home building remain
tremendously popular in the United States today.
Gustav Stickley:
Gustav Stickley (March 9, 1858–April 21, 1942) was a furniture maker and architect as
well as the leading spokesperson for the American Arts and Crafts movement.
In 1901, Stickley founded The Craftsman, a periodical which began by expounding the
philosophy of the English Arts & Crafts movement but which matured into the voice of
the American movement. He worked with architect Harvey Ellis to design house plans
for the magazine, which published 221 such plans over the next fifteen years. He also
established the Craftsman Home Builders Club in 1903 to spread his ideas about
domestic organic architecture.
These ideas had an enormous influence on Frank Lloyd Wright. Stickley believed that:
Frank Lloyd Wright originated the Prairie Style (open plans, horizontality, natural
materials) which was part of the American Arts and Crafts movement (hand
craftsmanship, simplicity, function) an alternative to the then dominant Classical Revival
Style (Greek forms with occasional Roman influences). He was also heavily influenced
by the Idealistic Romantics. Wright’s approach to design was closely associated with that
of the Arts and Crafts movement, in which the architect designed not only the house but
also the interior detailing, furniture, lighting fixtures, and even doorknobs, hinges, and
other hardware.
Wright believed that the architectural form must ultimately be determined by the
particular function of the building, its environment, and the type of materials employed in
the structure.
The use of various building materials for their natural colors and textures, as
well as for their structural characteristics.
His exteriors incorporated low horizontal proportions and strongly projecting
eaves.
This concept was particularly evident in his early Prairie style, single-family
houses, among them the Martin House (1904) in Buffalo, New York; the
Coonley House (1908) in Riverside, Illinois; and the Robie House (1909) in
Chicago.
Robie House (1909)
Mackintosh:
In Scotland, Mackintosh designed the Glasgow School of Art in two phases, which reveal
a dramatic shift from his early art nouveau phase to the Arts and Crafts aesthetic. The
building’s asymmetrical front (1897-1899) featured a range of styles and curving art
nouveau ironwork. The rear of the building (1906-1909) presented something quite
different: To light the artists’ studios within, Mackintosh opened
up the façade with tall windows set into an austere masonry grid.
Spare, simple, functional, and breathtakingly different, this
elevation predicted many of the qualities that came to be
associated with modern architecture after World War I (1914-
1918). Inside, the library, with its soaring interior space, dark
wood, and exquisitely crafted furniture and lighting fixtures,
revealed Mackintosh's fascination with Japanese architecture and design.
Art Nouveau
Art nouveau (French for "new art") is a style in art, architecture and design that peaked
in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century. Art Nouveau, which flourished in
Europe between 1890 and 1910, was one of the earliest (and shortest-lived) efforts to
develop an original style for the modern age.
Art nouveau artists and designers transformed modern industrial materials such as iron
and glass into graceful, curving forms often drawn from nature, though with playful
elements of fantasy. In contrast to both Perret and the architects of the Chicago School,
art nouveau designers were interested in architecture as a form of stylistic expression
rather than as a structural system.
The name "Art Nouveau" derived from the name of a shop in Paris, Maison de l'Art
Nouveau, at the time run by Samuel Bing, that showcased objects that followed this
approach to design.
Antoni Guadí
Victor Horta of Brussels.
3. Conventional moldings seem to spring to life and "grow" into plant-derived forms
5. Correspondingly organic forms, curved lines, especially floral or vegetal, and the
like, were used.
• Casa Vicens
• Sagrada Familia
• Palau Guell
• Colegio Teresano
• Casa Calvet
• Colonia Guell
• Bellesguard
• Park Guell
• Casa Batllo
• Casa Mila
Gaudi was the creator of the city of Barcelona known around the world, known
as one of the world capitals- of Modernism.
He was an attentive observer of nature from childhood.
He was attracted to the varied forms of nature , colors and geometry.
He was a pioneer in his field using color, texture and movement in ways never
before imagined.
Medieval books, Gothic art, Oriental structures, the Art Nouveau movement,
and, of course, the glory of nature, strongly influenced his designs.
Instead of relying on geometric shapes, he mimicked the way trees and humans
grow and stand upright.
The hyperboloids and paraboloids he borrowed from nature were easily reinforced
by steel rods and allowed his designs to resemble elements from the environment.
He had unique proposals in geometry, conception of space, constructive
procedures with different use of materials, forms and colour.
Some people define him as a transgressor, but some defend his mysticism, while
a few claim that his buildings are difficult to clarify.
His whimsical vision and imaginative designs have brought a bit of magic to this
historic region.
Gaudi’s culmination of traditional elements with fanciful ornamentation and
brilliant technical solutions paved the way for future architects to step outside the
box.
Sagrada Familia
This great cathedral is inspired by gothic style and yet a landmark of
modern architecture.
This giant church, with it’s broken tile mosaics, and unique sculptural
design, is by far Gaudi’s most recognized work.
o Gaudí turned to nature for a rich variety of animal and plant forms
to decorate the towering façades of the Sagrada Família. He also
used natural forms structurally: columns shaped like bones,
undulating walls in brick, a roofline resembling the profile of an
armadillo. His wide use of ceramic tile, a local building material,
gave color and texture to his designs. The deeply personal nature
of his fanciful designs meant that no school developed to follow
him.
Victor Horta created buildings which rejected historical styles and marked the
beginning of modern architecture.
He conceived modern architecture as an abstract principle derived from
relations to the environment, rather than on the imitation of forms.
Although the organic forms of Art Nouveau architecture as established by
Horta do not meet our standard ideas of modern architecture, Horta generated
ideas which became predecessors to the ideas of many modernists.
Horta was a leading Belgium Art Nouveau architect until Art Nouveau lost
public favor. At this time he easily assumed the role of a neoclassical
designer.
The characterizations are: the use of industrial materials like steel and iron in
the visible parts of houses.
New decorations inspired by nature (e.g. the famous whiplash motive, which
occurs very often in the Art Nouveau style and especially in the work of
Horta), decorative mosaics or graphical patterns on the facades of houses
can be seen applied in the Horta Museum itself.