The Arts And Crafts Movement in England
By Jack Bookwalter
In the last issue of Northwest Renovation I wrote about the early twentieth century Craftsman style in Portland. The Craftsman style was, essentially, the American interpretation the English style known as Arts and Crafts. I visited England this past summer and was fortunate enough to have the time to search out some of the most important Arts and Crafts icons in the country. This article will serve as a travelogue of sorts, chronicling my Arts and Crafts journey from Kent in the south to the Lake District in the far north. But first, some background on the Arts and Crafts movement itself.
The Arts and Crafts movement arose in England in the last half of the nineteenth century as a reaction to the excesses of Victorian-era industrialization. Arts and Crafts looked backward to the pre-industrialized Medieval age and saw a better world where workers took pride in hand-craftsmanship and where everyone lived in a closer connection to the natural world. The movement encompassed all facets of the design world as well as philosophy, politics, and even urban planning. In architecture, Arts and Crafts manifested itself in steep gable roofs, asymmetry, massive chimneys, and a return to simple, almost geometric, Medieval forms. Arts and Crafts architects looked askance at the excessive ornamentation of Victorian buildings of the time. Beauty, they believed, should arise from a celebration of the natural materials and craftsmanship used in the building’s construction — not from any ornamentation applied to the surface. Arts and Crafts architects could in this way be considered the first Modernists.
Any tour of England usually begins in London. While a fantastic city to visit, it is perhaps not the best place to view many examples of Arts and Crafts architecture. The movement’s emphasis on nature and simplicity gave the rural areas of England a jump start over their crowded, often-polluted urban cousins.
There is one Arts and Crafts attraction in London, however, that no visitor should overlook: the iconic Liberty Department Store on Regent Street. In the late 1800s, Arthur Lasenby Liberty was the first retailer to actively promote the work of Arts and Crafts designers in his store. Liberty’s discerning, high-end clientele provided an eager buying public for these handcrafted, and by necessity, expensive, products. Today, a Liberty label on antique furniture, jewelry, glass, silver, or tile insures that it commands the absolute highest price at a Sotheby’s or Christie’s auction.
The Liberty building itself is a classic rendition of a medieval half-timbered country lodge. As mentioned above, Arts and Crafts architects frequently looked to the Medieval world for their inspirations. Sadly though, Liberty’s exterior is an Arts and Crafts imposter. Its timber and plaster are applied decoration from a 1920s remodeling attempt. Many British historians therefore refer to it (and others like it) as Mock Tudor.
Today, Liberty sells re-issues of fabrics and wall-coverings from the William Morris Company — identical to the patterns it sold from the same company over 100 years ago. William Morris looms large in the history of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He was an artist/designer, inventor, philosopher, utopian socialist, and eventually a very astute businessman. Americans are perhaps most familiar with reproductions of his Victorian wallpaper. Anyone who has ever toured more than one restored Victorian house has probably seen a period Morris (or Morris-inspired) wall-covering.
William Morris’s own house, Red House, is now owned by the National Trust and is open to the public by advance reservation. It is located on the edge of the charming Kent town of Bexleyheath — about one hour southeast of London. Though Morris was the guiding light in the house’s design, the actual architect was Phillip Webb. Its 1859 date places it in the very early years of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Its steep roof, asymmetrical massing, and lack of ornamentation must have seemed a startling contrast to other Victorian buildings of the time. Also, its highlighting of ordinary local building materials such as brick, tile, and stone, foreshadowed features found in Arts and Crafts houses built a generation later.
Related to the Arts and Crafts Movement was the Garden City Movement. These completely new, semi-utopian communities incorporated Arts and Crafts designed buildings into their fabric as well as the Arts and Crafts ideal of living a better life closer to nature. (Garden Cities are not to be confused with the rather sterile “New Towns” created by the government in the 1950s and 1960s.) Many noted architects of the day — including Edwin Lutyens, C. F. A. Voysey, M. H. Baillie-Scott, Barry Parker, and Raymond Unwin — contributed designs for Garden City buildings. Most Garden Cities were concentrated in the southeast of England to relieve the overcrowding of the capital. As such, they make an easy day-trip from London today. Hampstead Garden Suburb is the closest and most accessible of these communities. It is also perhaps the most picturesque as it was marketed from the beginning as a somewhat more upscale development for commuting professionals.
From London I journeyed north to England’s second city, Birmingham. This once grimy industrial city has re-invented itself as a shining high-tech center of the twenty-first century. A loving respect for the best of the past is evident in its revitalized Victorian downtown, its world-class art museum, and in its beautifully restored cathedral and churches. All the stained glass windows in the city center’s churches were produced by the William Morris Company in the late 1800s. Morris’s chief stained glass designer in that period was Edward Burne-Jones, perhaps better known for his work as a Pre-Raphaelite painter. The Pre-Raphaelites were related to Arts and Crafts in their rejection of Victorian norms and in their looking backward to the Medieval age (i.e. prior to Raphael) for their inspiration. The Birmingham Art Museum claims to have the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the world.
North of Birmingham is the West-Midlands city of Wolverhampton. Here is located the wonderful Arts and Crafts house Wightwick Manor. It is owned by the National Trust and is well worth a visit. The house still has its original William Morris wallpaper and fabrics, DeMorgan Tiles, and Kempe glass.
I ended my Arts and Crafts safari in the picturesque Lake District in the far northwest corner of England. The Lake District has perhaps the largest concentration of Arts and Crafts icons in the country. The tourist bureau produces an “Arts and Crafts Trail” map for visitors seeking out such destinations. Unfortunately I was without car and had to depend on my feet and public transport in this spread-out district. Still, I managed to see some of the best of the best.
If the visitor to England must only chose one Arts and Crafts destination to visit, it should be Blackwell in Bowness-on-Windermere, on the shores of Lake Windermere in the Lake District. They don’t get any better than this. Designed by H. M. Baillie-Scott in 1900, it had fallen into disrepair for many years before being rescued by a local arts foundation in 2001. Today it has been completely restored and is operated by the foundation as a museum. Its exterior reflects the Medieval vernacular of fifteenth century Lake District farmhouses, yet its crisp geometric forms hint of Modernism to come. Its interior is quite representative of the Arts and Crafts genre with massive oak beams, stonework, and tiles. And yet in a few rooms Baillie-Scott has abandoned Arts and Crafts, pulled out all the stops and created Art Nouveau fantasies, not unlike the work being done at the time by his contemporary just across the border, Scottish architect Charles Rennie MacIntosh. In the next issue of Northwest Renovation I will discuss the work of MacIntosh and of the whole Art Nouveau Movement in turn-of-the-century Scotland.
I should mention that my trip was in no way an exhaustive search for Britain’s Arts and Crafts treasures. That’s the wonderful thing about England; there is always just so much history to uncover and explore. One could easily spend months there and still discover only the tip of the iceberg. I look forward to my next trip when I can learn even more. Now if we could just do something about that low American dollar…. |
