Although the Arts and Crafts movement dominated England between the years 1860 and
1915, its effects were felt around the world, especially in Western Europe and the United
States, well into the 1920s. Artwork associated with the Arts and Crafts movement is
characterized by a handcrafted aesthetic that embodied the principles of its English
founders: C.R.Ashbee, W.R. Lethaby, and William Morris, among others. The
philosophy these men advocated centered on their belief that the Industrial Revolution
had produced substandard goods with little artistic merit. In response to this situation,
they sought to reintroduce handmade products to the arts and to elevate the craftsman to a
more prominent position in the design professions. In refocusing the production of art
away from machines and toward individual designers, Arts and Crafts leaders hoped to
reform society by changing the way art was created, patronized, and appreciated in
English society.
The Arts and Crafts movement promoted the idea of truth in architecture, meaning that
a building should clearly express its structure, function, and material. An uncluttered
exterior and interior, without applied decoration to obscure the structure, was considered
the ideal, partly because the aesthetic was easily achieved without machines. This idea of
truth and clarity in architecture contrasted sharply with the Victorian aesthetic currently
Entries A–F 135
in vogue in England in which elaborate and ornate decora-tions, usually multicolored and
machine-made, dominated architectural design. Ashbee, Lethaby, and Morris believed
that Victorian interiors hid truth and clarity from the viewer by obscuring the forms and
shapes of a building. To this end, the simpler aesthetic of the Arts and Crafts returned
truth to architecture and contrasted with the “false” art created by the machine.
The idea of a simple aesthetic had regional, national, and historic overtones. Leaders
of the Arts and Crafts movement argued that the corrupted state of artistic production
resulted from the negative influence of industrialization on Western, particularly English,
society. Therefore, artistic production could be reformed by reviving methods of art and
craft that predated the industrial era. As viewed by the Arts and Crafts founders, the
period that best exemplified the preferred mode of artistic production was the age of
English medieval architecture. Not only did English medieval architecture fully embody
the Arts and Crafts ideal of a simple and truthful aesthetic, but buildings of the style were
local and easily available for study. Most important, the forms of English medieval
structures were already synonymous with the English architectural identity, and therefore
reviving English medieval art and craft promoted the English national identity through
architectural form. In using English medieval models, Ashbee, Lethaby, and Morris made
direct connections between the past and the present and between the historic and the
modern to make the Arts and Crafts aesthetic pertain directly to England.
The use of English medieval models also embodied the vision of craftsmen working
for a truthful aesthetic, which Arts and Crafts leaders strenuously advocated. In general,
English medieval structures had been constructed by laborers who worked with hand
tools to build a collective monument from honest artistic labor. Ashbee, Lethaby, and
Morris argued that because the work of these craftsmen was not mass-produced, it had
not been corrupted by the machine. Therefore, English medieval models served as
examples of how the individual craftsman could enhance the design of an aesthetic
masterpiece by ensuring that every part of the design received individual attention and
that every form was designed and created by hand. Ashbee, Lethaby, and Morris
envisioned groups of craftsmen, metalworkers, stonecutters, and carpenters working
together toward a finished product that combined a variety of different media. Inspired by
these medieval models, Arts and Crafts leaders believed that artistic production could
separate itself from the mechanized methods of the Victorian age to create a detailed and
truthful expression of its time and place.
Attention to detail resulted in an idea that was fundamental to the Arts and Crafts
movement: that of a total work of art. The Arts and Crafts aesthetic was not limited to
any one particular medium; in fact, Ashbee, Lethaby, and Morris argued that all arts
should be used to create a complete effect such that the whole became more than the sum
of its parts. Every aspect of an Arts and Crafts interior or structure, whether it was art or
architecture, was considered relevant to the design, and in this way the entire
environment was subject to consideration by a designer or a design team. To this end,
many Arts and Crafts workers began to experiment with processes that machines had
performed for decades, and crafts such as fabric dyeing and printing experienced a
renaissance as new methods were investigated and new objects produced.
Because the Arts and Crafts movement is a movement largely of ideas, it is difficult to
single out particular designers or works, or to identify particular forms as characteristic of
the Arts and Crafts style. In terms of architecture, Philip Webb’s Red House, in Upton,
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 136
Kent, commissioned by Morris in 1859, serves as one outstanding example of Arts and
Crafts architecture in England. Taking its name from its red brick construction, the design
of the Red House avoided all decoration that recalled a direct model and instead followed
the functional needs of Morris and his family. Murals, wall hangings, tapestries, and
wallpapers together created a homey and medieval ambience through natural motifs that
included animals, birds, flowers, and trees, all of which were native to the area or to
England. Designed and crafted by Morris, his wife Jane, Philip Webb, and Morris’s
friend Dante Gabriel Rosetti, the Red House expressed a relaxed and informal medieval
atmosphere where different artistic media conveyed a total aesthetic.
Arts and Crafts architecture relied on historic local and regional influences
to ensure that each house would wholly be a product of its place. Looking
back to earlier examples of Scottish domestic architecture, Charles Rennie
Mackintosh intended his 1903 Hill House, in Helensburgh,
Dunbartonshire, Scotland, to connect with the Scottish medieval past
through a re-use of medieval and local forms. Like that at the Red House,
Hill House’s facade is plain, with limited applied ornament.
The exterior
consisted of smooth stucco with low, protective eaves; deep windows and
porches; and buttresses that were borrowed from nearby examples of the medieval country church. Inside, Hill House embodied the
same idea of a total work of art in its consideration of all aspects of the space. Dark wood
shaped in simple and linear forms decorated the walls, while the beams supporting the
upper stories were left open to view. Handcrafted furniture and plain, white walls created
Entries A–F 137
a cozy effect, while the lighting filtered through wooden screens and lampshades to warm
the room. Mackintosh’s appreciation for the materials and his honest expression of the
structure through planar forms made Hill House fully represent the goals of the Arts and
Crafts movement.
The Arts and Crafts movement had greater impact on craft than on architecture, as
craftsmen were encouraged to incorporate many different artistic media into a single
product. Many Arts and Crafts designers worked in groups or partnerships, with each
partner specializing in a different process, such as printing or metalwork. Morris’s firm,
Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company, founded by Morris in 1861, serves as an
excellent example of this diversity, as the firm could produce wallpaper, furniture,
murals, stained glass, carvings, metalwork, and tapestries. The inclusion of different
artistic media not only added to the overall effect of the Arts and Crafts interior but also
recalled the idea of a medieval system in which different artists worked together, each
providing an essential and necessary component that enhanced the overall product.
The Arts and Crafts ideology and aesthetic was not limited to English and Scottish
designers. The reform efforts of Ashbee, Lethaby, Morris, and Mackintosh resonated
with designers of other nations, many of whom struggled with the issue of artistic
national identity, the impact of the machine on society, and the economic effect of
mechanized art. Each nation, however, tended to isolate and incorporate different aspects
of the ideology of the Arts and Crafts movement as they related to each nation’s context.
In the United States, for example, Morris’s ideas were complemented by the efforts of
Gustav Stickley, who promoted an agenda similar to Morris’s through his magazine, The Craftsman .
For Stickley, a return to a handcrafted aesthetic not only promoted art and social reform
but also educated the public and provided many with the means to earn their own living.
Unlike the English Arts and Crafts leaders, Stickley was less concerned with evoking a
medieval atmosphere in his designs, especially because the medieval did not have a
connection to the American past. Instead, Stickley argued that the simple Arts and Crafts
aesthetic could enhance the social conditions of the worker. As a result Stickley chose to
harness the power of the machine in favor of the worker rather than at the worker’s
expense. Ultimately, Stickley’s more famous designs, such as the 1903 Morris chair,
were produced by his own workers using machine technology.
Outside of Stickley’s magazine and furniture empire, other American designers
worked to apply Arts and Crafts principles to American design. One team of designers,
Charles Sumner Greene and his brother, Henry Mather Greene, experimented with native
materials in the design of the 1908 David B.Gamble House in Pasadena, California.
Aesthetically, the Gamble House explored craftsmanship through a new venue that
merged nature with handcraft, such that the Gamble House expressed its total work of art
through a strong connection between building and landscape. In contrast to the Greene
Brothers’ design is the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who used machines to create a
similar effect. The Robie House (1908) in Chicago is an example of Wright’s efforts to
use simple forms and low-hanging eaves to evoke a sense of movement between parts.
Like most other Arts and Crafts designers, Wright carefully considered the appearance of
the interior, using rich materials and patterns to create a sumptuous yet planar aesthetic.
Although Wright’s interiors relied on machines for their production, his interest in
promoting a unified interior and the straightforward use of natural materials resembled
ideas from the English Arts and Crafts leaders.
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 138
Like American designers, European designers placed more and less emphasis on
different aspects of the Arts and Crafts ideology. In Belgium and France, the Art
Nouveau movement, spearheaded by Samuel Bing, Victor Horta, and Hector Guimard,
sought to strike a new balance between modernity and handcraft through an emphasis on
naturalistic forms. In Barcelona, Spain, Antoni Gaudí explored regional identity through
the native materials he used to create an imaginative and unique architectural style.
Likewise, in Austria, the Vienna Secession movement, under the leadership of Otto
Wagner, advocated an artistic break from the past and experimented with simple forms
and planar volumes. All the products—art, architecture, and crafts—produced by French,
Belgian, Spanish, and Viennese designers in these movements borrowed from the Arts
and Crafts ideology, even if their work resulted in vastly different forms.
By 1914 the Arts and Crafts movement had faded from the architectural scene, and
new ideas moved into its place, taking English, American, and Western European
designers into the machine aesthetic and the International Style. Scholars recognized that
the Arts and Crafts movement had important links with the Modern movement, which
had first promoted the idea that architecture could reform society. Some designers, such
as Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, had direct connections with Arts and Crafts
ideology and partook in the Arts and Crafts revolution of form, helping to refocus artistic
production from its classical roots to its modern agenda. Without the simplicity of the
Arts and Crafts movement and its emphasis on social reform, the Modern movement
would have lacked a certain strength and vigor. The Arts and Crafts movement represents
an important precursor to subsequent movements and the development of new forms for
architectural production.
ART NOUVEAU (JUGENDSTIL)
Art Nouveau was a vibrant but short-lived phenomenon that flourished but from 1890 to
1910 and touched on all the visual arts. Fashion and furniture, pots and paintings, books
and buildings, no object was too small or too large, too precious or too ordinary, to be
shaped by the designer working according to the ideals—moral and social as well as
Entries A–F 129
aesthetic—associated with the Art Nouveau, even though these ideals were never
codified in a coherent manifesto and were inflected according to the place wherein they
were practiced.
Although historians may question the extent, chronologically and geographically, as
well as the very validity of an Art Nouveau style, several characteristics that bind its
representatives together may be credibly summarized: first, a desire to avoid the
historicism so dominant during the 19th century, using as inspiration Nature in all its
fertility and heterogeneity; second, an emphasis on the expressive power of form and
color and an aspiration to refine and elevate the material world; third, a determination to
erase the distinction between the fine and the applied arts, between the designer and the
craftsperson, between art and every-day life; and fourth, a willingness to experiment with
materials, transforming the character of traditional ones, like stone, stained glass, and
mosaic, and inventing new uses and shapes for recently developed ones, above all cast
and wrought iron. In architecture and the decorative arts, there is a heightened
appreciation of the role of ornament, but ornament that was novel in its formal character
and was not merely applied to, but integrated with, structure.
If there were influences from the distant past in time and space, they did not lead to
the imitative revivals so typical of the 19th century. Although Japanese, Islamic, and
Javanese art, medieval architecture, and rococo interiors were studied, the lessons learned
were assimilated into a creative synthesis intended to respond to the dawning of the new
century. More immediate sources were the critic-theorists of the Gothic Revival, notably
John Ruskin (1819–1900) and E.E.Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79), and figures associated with
the English Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic Movements, such as William Morris (1834–
96). If their goals were at times interpreted in contradictory ways, the social and
professional reforms these thinkers embraced anticipated many aspects of the positive
revolution in design accomplished under Art Nouveau’s aegis.
The drive to embrace the new and to break from the past is embodied in the very
names that designate this fin-de-s iècle phenomenon: Modern Style in France, Jugendstil in Germany, Modernismo in Spain, Nieuwe Kuns t in the
Netherlands, stil modern in Russia, and Art Nouveau in English-speaking lands. Its antiacademic
stance is embodied in the term Secess ions til, used in Austria and Eastern Europe. The two Italian
designations identify sources: s tilo Liberty, suggesting both the quest for freedom and the English
influence (the shop, Liberty’s of London, was one of the earliest purveyors of goods that
appealed to Art Nouveau sensibilities), and s tilo floreale, implying formal genesis in the world of
plants. Its detractors may have dubbed it the Vermicelli-s tijl (Netherlands) or the Spook Style (Great
Britain), but these epithets did not prevent its widespread adoption.
Art Nouveau was at once international and regional. The principles of originality,
organic integrity, and symbolic employment of ornament were translated according to
national traditions. Especially in Scandinavia, Scotland, Switzerland, Russia, and Eastern
Europe, National Romanticism was a component of Art Nouveau, and stylized peasant
and vernacular motifs as well as the memory of local medieval buildings flavored its
productions. Yet another principle of differentiation is whether the language is
predominately curvilinear or rectilinear. In Belgium, France, and Spain, the curvilinear
branch, where symmetry and repetition were assiduously avoided and sinuous vegetal
shapes informed both structure and ornament, held sway; the rectilinear, where geometry
controlled the stylization of natural forms, was preponderant in the Netherlands, the
Austro-Hungarian empire, Scotland, and the United States. Nevertheless, one can
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 130
instantly recognize in the particular national or local permutations the visual and tactile
elements associated with the Art Nouveau.
Art Nouveau architects sought the challenge of unprecedented building types, like
rapid transit stations and department stores, and did not confine their commissions to
domestic architecture, although private houses—Hill House, Helensborough (1902–04)
by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928); the David Gamble house in Pasadena
(1908) by Greene and Greene (Charles Sumner [1868–1957] and Henry Mather [1870–
1954])—and blocks of flats—Castel Beranger, Paris (1895–97) by Hector Guimard
(1967–1942); Majolikahaus, Vienna (1898–99) by Otto Wagner (1841–1918)—provide
some of the most noteworthy examples. Thus, the Paris Metro employed Guimard, and
the Viennese Stadtbahn commissioned Wagner to create appropriate structures for this
most contemporary of urban facilities. La Samaritaine, Paris (1903–05) by Frantz
Jourdain (1847–1935) and Carson, Pirie, Scott, Chicago (1899–1904) by Louis Sullivan
(1856–1924) testify to Art Nouveau’s commercial attraction for shoppers.
Various paradoxes complicate the definition of Art Nouveau. Fantastic
elements have led commentators to dub its disciples “irrational,” yet many of the architects were rationalist in their sophisticated approach to
technology, just as most were motivated by a wish to democratize society. Some of its
acolytes were fiercely individualistic, yet others worked cooperatively in communes and
workshops. Its products frequently were extravagantly luxurious and made to order for
rich patrons, yet many were mass-produced, and the vocabulary, as manifested in posters,
tableware, and textiles, appealed markedly to popular taste. The antagonism between the
machine-made and the handcrafted that raged during the 19th century was to some extent
reconciled in the Art Nouveau.
It was one of the first movements to be disseminated via specialized periodicals that
enhanced its reach: Van Nu en Straks (Brussels-Antwerp, 1892), The Studio (London, 1893), Pan (Berlin, 1895), Dekorative Kunst
(Munich, 1897), Deuts che Kuns t und Dekoration (Darmstadt, 1897), L’Art Decorati f (Paris, 1898), and Ver Sacrum (Vienna, 1898) are only a
few of the magazines that proselytized for Art Nouveau architecture and design.
The concept of the Ges amtkunstwerk (total work of art) was more potent than at any time since the
18th century. Thus, designers and artisans in many media played a crucial role, although
the architect, who controlled the overall setting, was especially powerful. One of the most
striking cases is the Belgian, Henri van de Velde (1863–1957), who began his career as a
painter and in 1895, at his home in Uccle, established an influential decorating enterprise.
He designed not only the building but everything within: furniture, table settings,
wallpaper, lighting fixtures, tapestries—even his wife’s clothing. Van de Velde went on
to provide Samuel Bing, the entrepreneur whose Parisian shop was called “Art Nouveau,”
with many of his trend-setting furnishings. A member of the avant-garde Belgian
organization, Les Vingt (Les XX), which had ties to French symbolism and the English Arts and
Crafts, Van de Velde was an important link between the various groups that fed into Art
Nouveau; in 1897 he moved to Germany and helped to crystallize the nascent Jugends til. His
career illustrates the cosmopolitan character of Art Nouveau.
One of the engines for the rapid spread of the Art Nouveau was the international
exhibition. The expositions at Paris in 1900 and Turin in 1902, where almost every
pavilion and its contents proclaimed Art Nouveau’s ascendency, may be considered the
high point of the movement. Other means of dissemination were the schools and
museums of the applied arts founded during the late 19th century, educating artisans and
the general public about the significance of the built environment. The Folkwang
Museum in Hagen, Germany, and the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna
followed the lead of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, established in the wake of
the first international (Crystal Palace) exposition, of 1851, to display decorative arts
worthy of emulation.
A curiosity of the movement was the tendency for some of its adherents, including
patrons, to launch workshops, firms, and even communities of like-minded souls. The Vereinigte Werks tätten für Ku ns t
und Handwerk (Munich, 1897), The Interior, (Amsterdam, 1900), and the Wiener Werks tätte (Vienna, 1903) all produced
decorative objects based on Art Nouveau principles. Colonies where artists could jointly
pursue the ideal of the Ges amtkunstwerk were initiated including the Künstlerkolonie at Darmstadt, Germany, where Grand
Duke Ernst of Hesse in 1899 invited a number of designers to live and work.
Arguably the birthplace of mature Art Nouveau is Brussels, and the figure
most associated with its brilliance is Victor Horta. His Tassel House
(1893) is widely accepted as the first example of Art Nouveau
architecture: the sinuous curves of the organic two- and three-dimensional
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 132
ornament and the artful blending of masonry and metal, tile and stained
glass, were imitated throughout the continent. Horta’s greatest work, the
Maison de Peuple (1895–99; demolished), demonstrated the popular
aspect of the style. Not only could wealthy industrialists indulge their taste
for it, but their employees too recognized that it evoked their aspirations.
Thus the Belgium Social Democratic Workers’ Party elected the Art
Nouveau as the appropriate language for its new headquarters. The
striking building, emblazoned with the names of Karl Marx and other
socialists, seems to grow from its hilly site, its contours undulating as if to
conform to contextual dictates. The iron frame used in combination with
brick and stone permits a free plan with spaces of varied heights and
dimensions, perfect for accommodating the program’s differing functions,
revealed on the exterior through the individualized fenestration; nothing is
regular or repetitive. The main door resembles a mysterious cave or mouth
that draws one into its recesses, empathy being a quality exploited by
many Art Nouveau architects.
Comparable in terms of naturalistic appearance, irregular footprint, and bold exploration
of kinesthetic and emotional responses to form and space are the Casa Mila (1906–10) in
Barcelona by Antonio Gaudí, and the Humbert de Romans building in Paris (1897–1901;
destroyed) by Guimard. Like the Belgian, the Catalan and the Frenchman were indebted
to Viollet-le-Duc, especially his projects using the new material of iron, but where Viollet
Entries A–F 133
was still in thrall to his Gothic sources, this later trio subsumes them into a totally novel
vocabulary derived from flora and fauna. The devout Gaudí believed that “nature is
God’s architect” (Collins, 1960), whereas Guimard saw Nature as “a great book from
which to derive inspiration,” replacing the archaeological tomes of the revivalists.
The more rectilinear version of Art Nouveau retains nature as the basic source of
imagery but emphasizes the geometric substructure underlying organic forms, as
described with particular insight by the German theorist Gottfried Semper (1803–79), and
symmetry is not rejected. Works by H.P.Berlage, Wagner, Olbrich, and Josef Hoffmann
belong in this camp, as do those by designers in Britain and the United States with roots
directly in the Arts and Crafts movement (e.g., C.R.Ashbee, Mackintosh, Charles
Harrison Townsend, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the brothers Greene). Right angles and
straight lines prevail, the stylized decorative motifs are less intuitive and more cerebral,
and metal structure, although occasionally present, is subordinated to more conventional
materials like wood, stone, and brick, the latter often plastered.
Most of the architects of High Art Nouveau turned away from the style by the end of
the first decade of the 20th century, those from the curvilinear branch toward
Expressionism, those practicing the rectilinear version toward modernism or
academicism; in France and Austria, the Art Nouveau smoothly metamorphosed into Art
Deco. In the second half of the 20th century, sporadic Art Nouveau revivals have
occurred. Short its reign may have been, but Art Nouveau’s spell endures.
1910 and touched on all the visual arts. Fashion and furniture, pots and paintings, books
and buildings, no object was too small or too large, too precious or too ordinary, to be
shaped by the designer working according to the ideals—moral and social as well as
Entries A–F 129
aesthetic—associated with the Art Nouveau, even though these ideals were never
codified in a coherent manifesto and were inflected according to the place wherein they
were practiced.
Although historians may question the extent, chronologically and geographically, as
well as the very validity of an Art Nouveau style, several characteristics that bind its
representatives together may be credibly summarized: first, a desire to avoid the
historicism so dominant during the 19th century, using as inspiration Nature in all its
fertility and heterogeneity; second, an emphasis on the expressive power of form and
color and an aspiration to refine and elevate the material world; third, a determination to
erase the distinction between the fine and the applied arts, between the designer and the
craftsperson, between art and every-day life; and fourth, a willingness to experiment with
materials, transforming the character of traditional ones, like stone, stained glass, and
mosaic, and inventing new uses and shapes for recently developed ones, above all cast
and wrought iron. In architecture and the decorative arts, there is a heightened
appreciation of the role of ornament, but ornament that was novel in its formal character
and was not merely applied to, but integrated with, structure.
If there were influences from the distant past in time and space, they did not lead to
the imitative revivals so typical of the 19th century. Although Japanese, Islamic, and
Javanese art, medieval architecture, and rococo interiors were studied, the lessons learned
were assimilated into a creative synthesis intended to respond to the dawning of the new
century. More immediate sources were the critic-theorists of the Gothic Revival, notably
John Ruskin (1819–1900) and E.E.Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79), and figures associated with
the English Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic Movements, such as William Morris (1834–
96). If their goals were at times interpreted in contradictory ways, the social and
professional reforms these thinkers embraced anticipated many aspects of the positive
revolution in design accomplished under Art Nouveau’s aegis.
The drive to embrace the new and to break from the past is embodied in the very
names that designate this fin-de-s iècle phenomenon: Modern Style in France, Jugendstil in Germany, Modernismo in Spain, Nieuwe Kuns t in the
Netherlands, stil modern in Russia, and Art Nouveau in English-speaking lands. Its antiacademic
stance is embodied in the term Secess ions til, used in Austria and Eastern Europe. The two Italian
designations identify sources: s tilo Liberty, suggesting both the quest for freedom and the English
influence (the shop, Liberty’s of London, was one of the earliest purveyors of goods that
appealed to Art Nouveau sensibilities), and s tilo floreale, implying formal genesis in the world of
plants. Its detractors may have dubbed it the Vermicelli-s tijl (Netherlands) or the Spook Style (Great
Britain), but these epithets did not prevent its widespread adoption.
Art Nouveau was at once international and regional. The principles of originality,
organic integrity, and symbolic employment of ornament were translated according to
national traditions. Especially in Scandinavia, Scotland, Switzerland, Russia, and Eastern
Europe, National Romanticism was a component of Art Nouveau, and stylized peasant
and vernacular motifs as well as the memory of local medieval buildings flavored its
productions. Yet another principle of differentiation is whether the language is
predominately curvilinear or rectilinear. In Belgium, France, and Spain, the curvilinear
branch, where symmetry and repetition were assiduously avoided and sinuous vegetal
shapes informed both structure and ornament, held sway; the rectilinear, where geometry
controlled the stylization of natural forms, was preponderant in the Netherlands, the
Austro-Hungarian empire, Scotland, and the United States. Nevertheless, one can
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 130
instantly recognize in the particular national or local permutations the visual and tactile
elements associated with the Art Nouveau.
Art Nouveau architects sought the challenge of unprecedented building types, like
rapid transit stations and department stores, and did not confine their commissions to
domestic architecture, although private houses—Hill House, Helensborough (1902–04)
by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928); the David Gamble house in Pasadena
(1908) by Greene and Greene (Charles Sumner [1868–1957] and Henry Mather [1870–
1954])—and blocks of flats—Castel Beranger, Paris (1895–97) by Hector Guimard
(1967–1942); Majolikahaus, Vienna (1898–99) by Otto Wagner (1841–1918)—provide
some of the most noteworthy examples. Thus, the Paris Metro employed Guimard, and
the Viennese Stadtbahn commissioned Wagner to create appropriate structures for this
most contemporary of urban facilities. La Samaritaine, Paris (1903–05) by Frantz
Jourdain (1847–1935) and Carson, Pirie, Scott, Chicago (1899–1904) by Louis Sullivan
(1856–1924) testify to Art Nouveau’s commercial attraction for shoppers.
Various paradoxes complicate the definition of Art Nouveau. Fantastic
elements have led commentators to dub its disciples “irrational,” yet many of the architects were rationalist in their sophisticated approach to
technology, just as most were motivated by a wish to democratize society. Some of its
acolytes were fiercely individualistic, yet others worked cooperatively in communes and
workshops. Its products frequently were extravagantly luxurious and made to order for
rich patrons, yet many were mass-produced, and the vocabulary, as manifested in posters,
tableware, and textiles, appealed markedly to popular taste. The antagonism between the
machine-made and the handcrafted that raged during the 19th century was to some extent
reconciled in the Art Nouveau.
It was one of the first movements to be disseminated via specialized periodicals that
enhanced its reach: Van Nu en Straks (Brussels-Antwerp, 1892), The Studio (London, 1893), Pan (Berlin, 1895), Dekorative Kunst
(Munich, 1897), Deuts che Kuns t und Dekoration (Darmstadt, 1897), L’Art Decorati f (Paris, 1898), and Ver Sacrum (Vienna, 1898) are only a
few of the magazines that proselytized for Art Nouveau architecture and design.
The concept of the Ges amtkunstwerk (total work of art) was more potent than at any time since the
18th century. Thus, designers and artisans in many media played a crucial role, although
the architect, who controlled the overall setting, was especially powerful. One of the most
striking cases is the Belgian, Henri van de Velde (1863–1957), who began his career as a
painter and in 1895, at his home in Uccle, established an influential decorating enterprise.
He designed not only the building but everything within: furniture, table settings,
wallpaper, lighting fixtures, tapestries—even his wife’s clothing. Van de Velde went on
to provide Samuel Bing, the entrepreneur whose Parisian shop was called “Art Nouveau,”
with many of his trend-setting furnishings. A member of the avant-garde Belgian
organization, Les Vingt (Les XX), which had ties to French symbolism and the English Arts and
Crafts, Van de Velde was an important link between the various groups that fed into Art
Nouveau; in 1897 he moved to Germany and helped to crystallize the nascent Jugends til. His
career illustrates the cosmopolitan character of Art Nouveau.
One of the engines for the rapid spread of the Art Nouveau was the international
exhibition. The expositions at Paris in 1900 and Turin in 1902, where almost every
pavilion and its contents proclaimed Art Nouveau’s ascendency, may be considered the
high point of the movement. Other means of dissemination were the schools and
museums of the applied arts founded during the late 19th century, educating artisans and
the general public about the significance of the built environment. The Folkwang
Museum in Hagen, Germany, and the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna
followed the lead of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, established in the wake of
the first international (Crystal Palace) exposition, of 1851, to display decorative arts
worthy of emulation.
A curiosity of the movement was the tendency for some of its adherents, including
patrons, to launch workshops, firms, and even communities of like-minded souls. The Vereinigte Werks tätten für Ku ns t
und Handwerk (Munich, 1897), The Interior, (Amsterdam, 1900), and the Wiener Werks tätte (Vienna, 1903) all produced
decorative objects based on Art Nouveau principles. Colonies where artists could jointly
pursue the ideal of the Ges amtkunstwerk were initiated including the Künstlerkolonie at Darmstadt, Germany, where Grand
Duke Ernst of Hesse in 1899 invited a number of designers to live and work.
Arguably the birthplace of mature Art Nouveau is Brussels, and the figure
most associated with its brilliance is Victor Horta. His Tassel House
(1893) is widely accepted as the first example of Art Nouveau
architecture: the sinuous curves of the organic two- and three-dimensional
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 132
ornament and the artful blending of masonry and metal, tile and stained
glass, were imitated throughout the continent. Horta’s greatest work, the
Maison de Peuple (1895–99; demolished), demonstrated the popular
aspect of the style. Not only could wealthy industrialists indulge their taste
for it, but their employees too recognized that it evoked their aspirations.
Thus the Belgium Social Democratic Workers’ Party elected the Art
Nouveau as the appropriate language for its new headquarters. The
striking building, emblazoned with the names of Karl Marx and other
socialists, seems to grow from its hilly site, its contours undulating as if to
conform to contextual dictates. The iron frame used in combination with
brick and stone permits a free plan with spaces of varied heights and
dimensions, perfect for accommodating the program’s differing functions,
revealed on the exterior through the individualized fenestration; nothing is
regular or repetitive. The main door resembles a mysterious cave or mouth
that draws one into its recesses, empathy being a quality exploited by
many Art Nouveau architects.
Comparable in terms of naturalistic appearance, irregular footprint, and bold exploration
of kinesthetic and emotional responses to form and space are the Casa Mila (1906–10) in
Barcelona by Antonio Gaudí, and the Humbert de Romans building in Paris (1897–1901;
destroyed) by Guimard. Like the Belgian, the Catalan and the Frenchman were indebted
to Viollet-le-Duc, especially his projects using the new material of iron, but where Viollet
Entries A–F 133
was still in thrall to his Gothic sources, this later trio subsumes them into a totally novel
vocabulary derived from flora and fauna. The devout Gaudí believed that “nature is
God’s architect” (Collins, 1960), whereas Guimard saw Nature as “a great book from
which to derive inspiration,” replacing the archaeological tomes of the revivalists.
The more rectilinear version of Art Nouveau retains nature as the basic source of
imagery but emphasizes the geometric substructure underlying organic forms, as
described with particular insight by the German theorist Gottfried Semper (1803–79), and
symmetry is not rejected. Works by H.P.Berlage, Wagner, Olbrich, and Josef Hoffmann
belong in this camp, as do those by designers in Britain and the United States with roots
directly in the Arts and Crafts movement (e.g., C.R.Ashbee, Mackintosh, Charles
Harrison Townsend, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the brothers Greene). Right angles and
straight lines prevail, the stylized decorative motifs are less intuitive and more cerebral,
and metal structure, although occasionally present, is subordinated to more conventional
materials like wood, stone, and brick, the latter often plastered.
Most of the architects of High Art Nouveau turned away from the style by the end of
the first decade of the 20th century, those from the curvilinear branch toward
Expressionism, those practicing the rectilinear version toward modernism or
academicism; in France and Austria, the Art Nouveau smoothly metamorphosed into Art
Deco. In the second half of the 20th century, sporadic Art Nouveau revivals have
occurred. Short its reign may have been, but Art Nouveau’s spell endures.
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