Arts and Crafts House Styles and Examples

The Arts and Crafts Movement began in England in the 1860s as a reform movement that challenged the tastes of the Victorian era. Its primary proponents were John Ruskin (1819-1900) and William Morris (1834-1896). Subsequently this style was taken up by American designers around the time of Morris's death in 1896, with somewhat different results. In the United States, the Arts and Crafts style was also known as Mission style.

Morris and Ruskin's notions of good design were linked to their notions of a good society. This was a vision of a society in which the worker was not brutalized by the working conditions found in factories, but rather could take pride in his craftsmanship and skill.

The rise of a consumer class coincided with the rise of manufactured consumer goods. In this period, manufactured goods were often poor in design and quality. Ruskin, Morris, and others proposed that it would be better for all if individual craftsmanship could be revived - the worker could then produce beautiful objects that exhibited the result of fine craftsmanship, as opposed to the shoddy products of mass production.

Thus the goal was to create design that was... " for the people and by the people, and a source of pleasure to the maker and the user." Workers could produce beautiful objects that would enhance the lives of ordinary people, and at the same time provide decent employment for the craftsman.

Types of Arts and Crafts styles include: Arts and Crafts, Craftsman, Mission, and Art Nouveau.

How to Spot an Arts and Crafts Style House

1. Low-pitched gabled roof with wide, unenclosed eave overhang
2. Roof rafters usually exposed
3. Decorative beams or braces under gables
4. Porch support bases extending to ground level
5. Porch supports usually squared and sometimes slanting inward

Arts and Crafts Books and Magazines.

Resource No. 516

Arts & Crafts Home Plans

Home Planners

A photographic study of several Craftsman homes and tips on creating an authentic Arts & Crafts style interior are also included n Complete construction blueprints available for every home in this collection Let Arts & Crafts Home Plans be your guide to this well known and beloved American home design.

Resource No. 518

Arts & Crafts House

Adrian Tinniswood

Featuring British, European, and American houses from the 1850s to the 1930s, this concentrated examination provides fresh insight into the lives of the architects and clients who fostered a dynamic movement that has enduring popular appeal.

Resource No. 515

Arts & Crafts Houses

Tina Skinner, Steven Paul Whitsitt

Tour sixteen beautifully restored homes built and decorated in the Arts and Craft style, an early twentieth century movement to counter the increasing urbanization and mechanization of human life. Nearly 300 color photos detail links between nature and human skill, and capture architectural elements of the Arts and Crafts bungalow.

Resource No. 517

Arts and Crafts Houses in the Lake District

Matthew Hyde, Esme Whittaker

This is the first book to fully explore the development of the Arts and Crafts movement in the Lake District. The Arts and Crafts flourished distinctively in the Lake District, as architects, craftsmen and builders responded to the outstandingly beautiful landscape, to the region's strong sense of tradition and local identity and to the writings of Wordsworth and Ruskin.

Resource No. 514

Craftsman Homes

Gustav Stickley

Gustav Stickley's own compilation of the best of his designs.