Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts and Crafts Architects of California - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520209168 ISBN 13: 9780520209169

Publisher: University of California Press, 1997

Synopsis

This book celebrates one of the richest and most enduring themes in American architecture—California's Arts and Crafts Movement. Echoing the writings of Helen Hunt Jackson, Charles F. Lummis, and Charles Keeler, this movement represented a retreat into a quieter place from the materialism of American society. Anti-commercial, anti-modern, Arts and Crafts practitioners drew on the decorative schemes of English Tudor, Swiss chalet, Japanese temple, and Spanish mission, evoking an earlier time before modern industry and technology intruded. And if only one word is used to describe virtually every Arts and Crafts house in California, that word is "woodsy": wood shingles outside, wood paneling inside, a wood fire burning in the homey, welcoming fireplace.

Most chapters in this impressive and very readable book focus on one building by a particular architect or designer and illustrate that person's development and influences. Familiar architects such as Bernard Maybeck, Charles and Henry Greene, John Galen Howard, and Julia Morgan are here, but so too are less well-known names who were a vibrant part of the Arts and Crafts Movement. These late Romantics designed houses to complement nature rather than contrast with it. Their eclecticism and historicism reflected a Romantic bent as well, no doubt cultivated by their familiarity with the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where, in fact, Howard, Maybeck, and Morgan studied.

The book's contributors also give attention to the builders, contractors, and craftsmen whose skills contributed to the lasting impact of the California Arts and Crafts Movement. Superb illustrations provide examples of elevations, composition details, interior fixtures, and gardens, all designed to promote the "simple living and high thinking" of the Craftsman style, an esthetic that continues to influence architecture today.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Winter is Arthur G. Coons Professor of the History of Ideas, Emeritus, at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He is the author of The California Bungalow (1980), American Bungalow Style (1996), and coauthor of A Guide to Architecture in San Francisco and Northern California (1985) and Los Angeles: An Architectural Guide (1994).

From Library Journal:

These two excellent books are joined spiritually as they explore the Arts & Crafts movement's quest for a retreat from the materialism of the Gilded Age as manifested on different sides of the continent. Inspiring Reform is an exhibition catalog from the Davis Museum and Cultural Center's centenary celebration of Boston's Society of Arts & Crafts, which sponsored the earliest exhibition of Arts & Crafts pieces in America in 1897. The Davis exhibit, which will also be at the Smithsonian, covers the years 1890-1930 and features 150 examples of furniture, ceramics, metalware, book art, prints, and very unique photography. More than 230 illustrations?40 in color?acccompany the catalog's ten essays, all written by specialists in the field. Another essay collection, Toward a Simpler Way of Life, focuses on the variety of styles of Arts & Crafts structures found in California. In their drive toward the anticommercial, the practitioners drew on the decorative schemes of English Tudor, Swiss Chalet, Japanese Temple, and Spanish Mission styles to evoke an earlier, preindustrial time. As expected, Bernard Maybeck, the Greene Brothers, and Julia Morgan are here, but so are many talented, lesser-known designers. The knowledgeable essays also give due attention to the builders, contractors, and artisans who contributed so much. The book will have a bounty of 365 period duotone photos, not seen by the reviewer. Important studies of this perennially popular style, both works are highly recommended for all art and architecture collections.?Joseph C. Hewgley, Nashville P.L.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0520209168
• ISBN 13: 9780520209169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 302
• Editor: Winter Robert