Arts and Crafts Design Lecture Notes

Arts and Crafts Design

  • Aims: Re-establish good moral Christian values, order, stability, and simplicity of life associated with the Medieval/Gothic era; improve society through craftsmanship.

  • Influences: Reaction against poor taste and shoddy, ornate, mass-produced goods of the Victorian industrial era; Gothic architecture (symmetry, pointed arches, steep roofs); English cottage style using local materials.

  • Characteristics: Symmetrical balance; flat areas of bold primary colours (blue, yellow, red) and earth tones; nature motifs (plants, animals, birds) and Gothic motifs (trefoil, quatrefoil); William Morris's philosophy of "truth to materials" (visible construction joints, unadorned surfaces showing natural wood grain); minimal ornamentation; revival of traditional crafts (weaving, embroidery, lace-making, tapestry).

  • Key Design: The Red House (1860, Kent, England) by Philip Webb for William Morris and Jane Burden. Features Gothic Revival pointed arches, plain locally sourced red brick walls, locally sourced slate roof tiles, slender windows, exposed beams, and honesty of construction over superficial decoration.

Art Nouveau

  • Aims: Create an original modern visual style for the 20th century and urban spaces devoid of excessive historicism; unify arts and design under one set of principles (Gesamtkunstwerk).

  • Influences: Victorian industrial technology and materials (elevators, electric light fittings); spirituality, the subconscious, and nature; changing societal views portraying women as sensual and powerful; Celtic and Viking carved stone patterns; Late Gothic decorative tracery.

  • Characteristics: Predominance of organic forms and dynamic curvilinear lines (the "whiplash line"); surface decoration prioritised over form and function; nature motifs (sunflowers, roses, lilies, peacocks) and sensuous female figures; flat, subdued, matt colours; lavish, exotic materials (mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli, horn, ivory, iridescent glass).

  • Key Design: The Staircase of the Hotel Tassel (Brussels) by Victor Horta. Utilises an innovative open plan, exposed steel beams shaped into plant tendrils, decorative wrought iron integrated into railings and balconies, and feminine curvilinear interior surfaces reminiscent of a Rococo drawing room.

Art Deco Design

  • Aims: Produce luxurious, highly decorative objects for the wealthy and fashionable elite (High Art Deco), alongside accessible mass-produced goods.

  • Influences: Modern avant-garde art (Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Abstraction); discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb and Egyptian artefacts (papyrus motifs, stepped pyramids, ziggurats, sunrays); Oriental art; Russian ballet costumes in Paris during WWI; Native American and Aztec architectural styles.

  • Characteristics: Dynamic, flat, clashing colours; geometric lines, zigzags, and stepped forms; decorative intrusion into structural parts (e.g., bottle stoppers and handles); motifs reflecting modern speed (trains, cars, aeroplanes, ships), animals, fish, and sirens (sensuous women).

  • Key Design: Entrance 405 to The Chrysler building by William van Alen. Composed of three frosted glass sections: a central rectangular grid, an Egyptian-pyramid-shaped top section, and an ornate lower section above the doors featuring zig-zag patterns beneath a stepped ziggurat tower.

De Stijl Design

  • Aims: Express absolute universal harmony and balance between binary opposites using fundamental geometric lines and colours.

  • Influences: Dutch tradition of logic and clarity; philosopher Schoenmaeker's theories on reducing nature to mathematical binary opposites; Cubist geometric abstraction; the Machine Age.

  • Characteristics: Severe abstraction using exclusively horizontal and vertical straight lines; geometric rectangles and squares; limited colour palette of the three primary colours (red, blue, yellow) alongside neutrals (black, white, grey); smooth, undecorated surfaces creating a clinical, rational feel.

  • Key Design: Red and Blue Chair (1917, Netherlands) by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld. Constructed with straight lines, smooth block-like forms, sharp right angles, undecorated surfaces, and a strict primary colour scheme outlined in black.

Bauhaus Design

  • Aims: Standardise rational, functional design suited for industrial mass production; integrate art, craft, and technology under the principle of "form follows function."

  • Influences: German cultural shift from Expressionism to New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit); the Machine Age and modern industrial manufacturing.

  • Characteristics: Pure geometric forms (cube, cylinder, cone, sphere); horizontal and vertical lines with a complete rejection of organic curves; unadorned surfaces of raw industrial materials (concrete, steel, glass, wood) accented by primary or neutral colours; total elimination of applied ornament.

  • Key Design: Bauhaus Building (1925–1926) by Walter Gropius. Employs asymmetric block-like geometric wings, unadorned concrete surfaces, and simple pilotis/columns elevating sections of the structure.

Modernist Design

  • Aims: Conceive architecture as "machines for living" (living, working, and commerce); prioritise utility and industrial materials over decorative aesthetics; apply "less is more" and "truth to materials."

  • Influences: Bauhaus functionalism; post-WWII material shortages necessitating efficient production; Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, space exploration, and atomic science; Scandinavian and Japanese woodwork.

  • Characteristics: Aerodynamic, teardrop, shell-like, or biomorphic contours; warped natural forms; bare industrial materials (concrete, tubular steel); youthful, consumer-driven mass-market designs.

  • Key Design: Villa Savoye (1931, outside Paris) by Le Corbusier. Designed according to Le Corbusier's Five Points: pilotis (ground-level columns), free plan, horizontal ribbon windows, free façade, and a flat functional roof garden (subject to autumn leaks; now preserved as a museum).

Scandinavian Design

  • Aims: Deliver democratic, high-quality, practical, and elegant homeware and furniture for everyday living, influenced by 1950s Nordic social democracy.

  • Influences: Modernism and Bauhaus functionalism; Surrealist biomorphic shapes; post-WWII technology and materials; long, dark Scandinavian winters prompting light, bright interior spaces.

  • Characteristics: Light-coloured woods, clean lines, organic contours, and fine finishes; striking accent colours; mixed media including form-pressed wood, plywood, tubular satin-chrome steel, fibreglass, plastics, vinyl, rubber, and anodised aluminium.

  • Key Design: The Ant Chair (1952) by Arne Jacobson. Designed for a Danish pharmaceutical firm; features an organic, ant-shaped shell formed from a single piece of laminated, cotton-padded wood veneer set upon three satin-chrome steel legs.

Pop Art

  • Aims: Subvert the elitism of traditional "high" art; celebrate commercial consumerism, kitsch, and youth culture; mark the transition into Postmodernism.

  • Influences: Dada readymades, collages, and found objects; commercial advertising, mass media, comic books, science fiction, and supermarket junk food; artists Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselman, and Roy Lichtenstein.

  • Characteristics: Bright primary colours; commercial printing motifs (Ben-Day dots); playful, irreverent iconography drawn from everyday life; deliberate embrace of low-brow taste (e.g., white sunglasses).

  • Key Design: Bocca Sofa by Studio 65. Sculpted in the kitsch shape of erotic lips ("bocca" in Italian) using flexible foam and red elastic fabric; undermines conventional art seriousness to connect with popular youth aesthetics.

Postmodernist Design

  • Aims: Dismantle Modernist austerity, rigidity, and exclusivity; inject variety, wit, pluralism, and individuality into design for public engagement.

  • Influences: Eclectic historical architecture (Classical Greek, Roman arches) synthesized with 20th-century machine aesthetics and materials.

  • Characteristics: Juxtaposition of past and present (e.g., classical columns rendered in reinforced concrete, plastics, and steel); bold, quirky, humorous, and avant-garde compositions; non-functional, decorative pastiche.

  • Key Design: Matsuda's Car Salesroom (1991, Tokyo, Japan) by Kengo Kuma. Incorporates an oversized Classical Greek Parthenon-style central column and Roman decorative arches constructed from modern reinforced concrete.