Wednesday, October 10, 2007

ARTS & CRAFTS INTERIORS CIRCA 1900

I call a house like this (above) "Victorian" but it was in a book on the Arts and Crafts Movement so I'll include it here. Maybe the white trim qualifies it as an A & C house. I love houses like this but the interiors didn't always match the brilliance of the exteriors.



People of that era favored awkward high ceilings and furniture (above) that seemed oddly uncomfortable and out of place.



Low ceilings (above) worked a lot better. The low ceiling above offers shelter and helps to emphasize the luxurious width of the room. I love beamed ceilings, especially the ones that have occasional extra-thick beams for carving. I'll bet the orangey varnished wood looked great by candle light, and the reader at the raised desk in the foreground must have felt like a king when he surveyed the room.

I hate to say it, but even a terrific room like this has some defects. Arts & Crafts people didn't believe in comfortable chairs. They favored the medieval straight-backed chair and the bench. They also didn't believe in large social spaces. They'd design a big space like the one above then break it into tiny alcoves.

Even the alcoves weren't really social. Look at the big alcove on the right, above. Two uncomfortable and unmovable bench-sofas face each other across an awkward space dominated by the fireplace. It looks great but there must be times when the owners yearned for something more comfortable and friendly.

Here's (above) an odd and uncomfortable barn of a room which still succeeds in being imaginative and stimulating. The plain, maybe too plain, white cabinet dominates. The recessed bench area looks like a theater proscenium. I like the Nordic chevron pattern on the cabinet.



It's funky, and probably impractical, but I like it. The room above looks like The Globe Theater.


The color in watercolor above is so appealing that it distracts us from the defects of the room. The long, narrow shape of the dining room is uncongenial to pleasant eating and the china cabinet sits there like a big T-Rex, threatening to eat the guests.
I don't understand the appeal of monstrous cabinets, especially when the precious dishes they're supposed to contain are locked away, out of sight.

This picture (above) is off-topic but I couldn't resist including it. It's the Hungarian Pavilion at an international exhibition held in 1901. I love the stark, expressionist roof tops. I also like the way they're set off nicely by the girders in the ceiling above.




13 comments:

  1. "The low ceiling above offers shelter and helps to emphasize the luxurious width of the room."

    Never thought about that, good point!

    On vacation we wend to casa de milla, I really liked that!

    Like the door handles they use there! They look crazy and it fits nice in the hand.
    http://themagazine.info/56/Pictures/B.D/GaudiHardwareTwo.jpg

    What do you think of furniture from Gaudi?
    Or am I totally offtopic now...

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  2. eddie, you have the weirdest taste ever when it comes that kind of stuff, i had noticed it on earlier posts. I wonder what's your home like. Keep up the good job!

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  3. I live in a 1920s house that was converted into apartments after WWII, and so I have the "awkward" high ceilings. But I am a big fan of them! More space to hang things on the wall-of-inspiration! Nothin' awkward about that. Plus low ceilings induce claustrophobia.

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  4. Anonymous11:36 AM

    You should become an architect.

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  5. What a weird arts movement that was (pre-Raphaelites, too)! Maybe they saw Modernism coming & they were trying to retreat. I could get used to that, except for the straight chair backs.

    The Hungarian Pavillion reminds me of a picture you posted of a wooden pallisade in Hungary a while back.

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  6. Great observations, Eddie! The one point on which I might differ: I really do like the idea of dividing a big room into cozy little alcoves, what I believe the Brits call snuggeries. As Kenneth Clark once said, "I doubt anyone has ever conceived a great thought in an enormous room."

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  7. Eddie,
    I actually live in an Arts and Crafts home and really like some of that style. You somehow managed to pick out all the worst of the movement for this post. An accident, I'm sure. ;)
    This site seems to have some good stuff on it - http://www.craftsmanperspective.com/ - if you're interested.

    Also, the picture that you're calling low ceilings is probably not as low as you think. They're probably just the same as all the others, but the wood beams and all the dark stuff up there makes the ceilings look lower than the others.

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  8. I love old buildings, the pictures you post are beautiful!
    My friends and I we did holidays in a historic city(Hann Muenden) and the house we stayed at was about 450 years old. Many buildings in my hometown are about 100 years old.

    http://www.biologie.de/w/images/9/9d/Hann_muenden_rathaus_001.jpg

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  9. That's the best description of a china cabinet I've ever seen.

    "...and the china cabinet sits there like a big T-Rex, threatening to eat the guests."

    Fantastic.

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  10. They had high ceilings because they didn't have air conditioning.

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  11. Mitch: Your link was cut off at the end.

    Kali: True. A lot of painters preferred high ceilings the pictures looked great on them.

    Lester: Wow! A great quote! occassionally I'm in a really big house for a party or a dinner and invariably I discover that the owner does his creative work in a small room.

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  12. Tasch: I really like most of the rooms I chose, in spite of the defects. My computer wouldn't let me look at your link. I'll try again later.

    Arsch: I'll try the link again later. It's not working now.

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  13. >> Arsch: I'll try the link again later. It's not working now. <<

    The link appears to be incomplete, so that's the reason why it's not working.
    I think THIS is the correct one.

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