Over the past couple of decades a lot of ink and air time has been spent worrying about the rise of a 'want-it have-it' culture. In particular, people fret over what this lifestyle will do to our children. What kind of values can they develop trawling through town centres every Saturday, consuming instant factory-made food and even more instant factory-made trinkets? At base, there seems to be an underlying unease about the insubstantial world that we have created for ourselves. This has produced both the (inevitable) backlash and then the (even more inevitable) back-backlash. The first is reflected in the rise of the organic, of slow cooking, and of teaching our children exactly where food comes from (that is to say that milk is not produced in a flash in a factory, but is part of a lifecycle). The second is that this is all rather poncey and delicate, and how about just enjoying the benefits of the technologies we spend so much of our daily lives sustaining? Whatever your views, this whole debate feels rather nowish; a self-consciously modern problem.
But it isn't. The sense that our production-consumption cycle somehow alienates us from more fundamental aspects of human existence has weighed heavy before. Following the industrialising fever of the 1800s there emerged a group of designers who expressed just this sense of disengagement with the world they inherited. They were jaded: disillusioned by manufactured goods that lacked pride or care in their making; put off by cluttered Victorian homes into which every knick-knack from every corner of the empire seemed to migrate and vie for attention. They wanted something more substantial; a home that felt welcoming, somewhere to nourish a family and greet friends. Idealism was the bedrock of this worldview. In design terms this meant looking for a more honest aesthetic, one purged of their predecessors' showy eclectic pretensions. They wanted a house to have a clear, cohesive identity, rather than act as a showcase for oddments that reflected worldly breadth.
For the designers swept up by this movement John Ruskin's (1819-1900) writings were seminal. He linked the quality of art and crafts with the values underpinning their creation. Ruskin admired the fraternity and freedom of expression that he saw in the medieval craft guilds. Both qualities seemed a far cry from the factory line monotony that was irrevocably changing British production. Ruskin wanted a more genuine form of expression, he wanted people to "go to nature in all singleness of heart, rejecting nothing and selecting nothing". Simply put, he was asking people to depict what they saw. Arts and crafts designers blew life into Ruskin's vision. In 1884 an art workers guild was established. It sought to bring together designers in spite of the barriers of professional difference. By conceiving of design as a whole, as something which straddled the divisions of high-art, architecture, and decorative craft, these designers hoped to realise the cohesive aesthetic that they longed for in their homes.
The Arts and Crafts designers produced designs defined by fine craftsmanship; it was implicit in their work that the product would bare the hallmarks of skill, of quality materials and of personal attention. William Morris' wallpapers are amongst the most enduring and renowned examples of this approach. Morris (1834-96), produced his first wallpapers by using printing blocks and natural dyes. The success of this approach, from a stylistic point of view is fairly indisputable: Morris' papers remain sought after to this day.
The irony is that these goods were headily expensive. However laudable the Arts and Crafts values, the final object still had to be profitable in a market awash with ready-mades and prefabs. The time and quality that the Arts and Crafts designers invested resulted in high prices for their works; only the financial elite had the funds to purchase the products of this egalitarian philosophy. So it came to be that the Arts and Craft house was invariably owned by the well-to-do professional looking for a little respite from a city full of artifice.
The designers' fondness for (apparently) medieval values was accompanied by an aesthetic that paid tribute to medieval imagery. Gothicised flowers bloomed across richly glazed tiles and up stained glass window panes (William de Morgan created some stunning, and today familiar, floral tile designs which incorporated an Oriental aesthetic). Staircases were encased in wood and their banisters crowned with geometric forms, for example orbs; this simplicity played into images of medieval monastic life. Wood also featured in the Arts and Crafts homes as wall panelling, and flooring. What is more, it provided a crucial weapon in the designers' war against Victorian clutter; it could be used for that God-sent hide-all: built in furniture. Each of these features participated in the creation of a strong and clear overall aesthetic; the time for excess and flourish had passed. The Arts and Crafts designers wanted something rawer, something from the nation's heritage, and folk traditions.
These are all clues in identifying an Arts and Crafts house but they are perhaps just edging around what (to our eyes) is the most distinctive and pleasing feature of an Arts and Crafts home: the fireplace. The fireplace had, for many generations, symbolised the heart of family life. For all their rebellion this was one sentiment that the Arts and Crafts designers were not about to reject. On the contrary the fireplace became the dominant feature of their living space. Cosy inglenooks were popular if they were affordable. Others went for decorative fire surrounds which extended vertically to incorporate shelving or chunky mirrors. The fireplace typically housed wrought iron grating and end irons. The chimney piece could be a striking affair, constructed in a Renaissance, Oriental or Islamic style, and incorporating a metal hood. Less expensive versions were plainer, brick for instance. They would, more often than not, contain a fireplace adorned with tiles displaying images of the natural world. For better or worse, the message was unapologetically one of hearth and home.
The work, philosophy and passion of these designers is more than history. The results live with us today, or rather we live with them. A stroll through either London's Bedford Park or Hampstead Garden Suburb reveals many fine examples of Arts and Crafts housing. (Of course no movement has neat start and end points, and these houses also embody the values of the Aesthetic movement which ran more less in tandem with the Arts and Crafts movement and shared many of its priorities). Both suburbs were the work of Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912). The aim was to mask the suburb in an aura of countryside living. Shaw did this in a variety of ways, his early style (baptised the 'Queen Anne' style), was typified by tiles on the facade, eaves that overhung, white painted wood frames and leaded windows. In general houses built at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement sought to create a more homely and inviting look for the passer-by. Two of the ways in which they achieved this was with external brick and tile work in warm earth tones and rather asymmetrical and rustic building shapes.
Within such shells the Arts and Crafts interiors were a variety of cream, muted green and yellow, rich deep red, terracotta, and cool blue tones. Paint work always bore the marks of a freehand finish. To see the genuine article today is not as hard as you may think. Kensington contains some real gems from this period, there is for instance the Linley Sambourne House which has an extremely well preserved interior, and there is also the Leighton House Museum (dedicated to former resident and artist Lord Leighton). A little further a field is Red House in Bexleyheath, only a short train ride from central London. Red House was commissioned by one of the beacons of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris. Morris designed his house in conjunction with the architect Phillip Webb. Exemplifying their belief that design should supersede professional titles, they had artist Edward Burne-Jones not only provide his paintings but also create murals, tiles and stained glass designs for the building. Red House's inviting name reflects something of its homeliness. Its steep medieval style roof rises out of a patchwork of fruit and herb gardens (conceived of as extensions to the house itself). The crimson brick and tile work give the house is a warm appearance, a feature drawn out by the typical Arts and Crafts contrast of red brick with white paintwork. Red House was designed for family and by friends, this makes it one of the most heartfelt expressions of Arts and Crafts values. For this reason there is probably no better place to introduce yourself to the Arts and Crafts dream.
