The Arts & Crafts Movement:

In England, there were still men of great influence who resisted the use of iron in architecture.

Such men as John Ruskin and William
Morris set out to rejuvenate art and architecture by returning to Medieval conditions...

The Arts & Crafts Movement:

French architects like Viollet - Le - duc equated iron roofed structures to sheds.

Products were overly ornamented and those architects had violent reactions to this type of construction.

The Arts & Crafts Movement:

The solution that Viollet proposed was to recapture the romantic world of Medieval craftsmen

The Arts & Crafts Movement:

The Arts & Crafts Movement, as it is so called, set out to, and for sixty years, provide a nostalgic postscript to country house architecture.

The Red House:

Commissioned by Morris, Philip Web built the Red House at Bexley Heath in Kent.

The Red House:

The house was to represent a protest against industrialism through its:

Informality

Absence of decoration

Simple vernacular

The Red House:

The emphasis on basic form, sound materials and good craftsmanship had great appeal to architects who in turn contributed to a poetic phase of European architecture.

The Art Nouveau:

Country house architecture was an attempt to move away from Historicism.

The Art Nouveau (New art) was a refinement of that philosophy

The Art Nouveau:

Appearing in the latter part of the 19th century, this movement principally began in the applied arts

The Art Nouveau:

The movement’s main focus comprised of ornamentation inspired by nature.

This attitude was a departure and a liberation from historic imitation.

The Art Nouveau:

The favorite ornamental motif were the sensuous curves found in:

Natural formas of plants

The sea

Flowing hair

The Art Nouveau:

The new expression was found everywhere:

Lamps

Furniture

Posters and drawings

Fabrics

Type faces & trinkets

The Link with Architecture:

This process of stylization placed emphasis on clarity and purity of line.

This brought about its link with architecture

Belgium:

Architects Henry Van der Velde and Victor
Horta became the principal proponents of the Art Nouveau.

Horta experimented with flexible free curving forms. He applied this technique to his architecture.

Spain & Gaudi:

Around the same time, Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona Spain explored similar ideas in what he called a “biological style”.

In his Sagrada Familia, Gaudi created free flowing plastic shapes that appeared to have been molded out of clay from almost pure sculpture.

Spain & Gaudi:

Gaudi’s work has frequently been referred to as “Fantastic Architecture”

Other Architects:

Louis Sullivan in America created not only new architecture, but used ductile metal.

Rennie Makintosh in Scotland was not influenced by the flexible ornamental line. His “School of Art” in Glasgow is an example of a strongly personal and historically developed structure..

Last thoughts on the Art
Nouveau:

These New expressions of design were the outward manifestation of the great dissatisfaction that existed among designers.

Historical dressing for a time was a strong way of representing architecture.

Last thoughts on the Art
Nouveau:

The Industrial Revolution stimulated the need for a new way to apply architecture.

It was necessary to purge society from historical reference with regard to architecture and give architecture a new relevance to contemporary technology.

Last thoughts on the Art
Nouveau:

The Art Nouveau was a PROTEST and not the foundation from which 20th century architecture was formed.

It left as quickly as it came…….