Q. Write short notes on the Arts and Crafts Movement.The Arts & Crafts Movement was a movement born of ideals. It grew out of a concern for the effects of industrialization: on design, on traditional skills and on the lives of ordinary peopleIt began in Britain around 1880 and quickly spread across America and Europe. The Movement took its name from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in 1887, but it encompassed a very wide range of like-minded societies, workshops and manufacturers. The origins of the Movement In Britain the disastrous effects of industrial manufacture and unregulated trade had been recognized since about 1840, but it was not until the 1860s and 1870s that architects, designers and artists began to pioneer new approaches to design and the decorative arts.

Mass production of goods resulted in loss of ownership of the object created by the craftsmen. Work became alien in factories and the joy of working was lost in the process.

Working in factories alienated people from nature.

Streamlining of work separated the ownership of the object from the workman.

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.

Also, in Britain, foreign made goods were in vogue. French goods had become a rage, replacing British goods. A need to relate to local aesthetics, materials and ideals was hence born that made people want to return to their roots. British made goods and designs hence became popular in this time.

FEATURES

The forms of Arts and Crafts style were typically rectilinear and angular, with stylized decorative motifs reminiscent of medieval and Islamic design. Forms were simple and often organic. Natural motifs were used for designing. Vernacular style of building. Local materials were used. Honesty of materials was given emphasis.

Medieval Guilds provided a model for the ideal craft production system. Aesthetic ideas were also borrowed from Medieval European and Islamic sources. Japanese ideas were also incorporated early Arts and Crafts forms. Indian influence was also seen, such as in the designing of Bungalows (from Bengali courtyard houses) all over Britain. Floral motifs and paisley (flat) patterns were also often incorporated.EXAMPLES The two most influential figures were the theorist and critic John Ruskin and the designer, writer and activist William Morris. 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.

John Ruskin examined the relationship between art, society and labor. William Morris put Ruskin's philosophies into practice, placing great value on work, the joy of craftsmanship and the natural beauty of materials. New guilds and societies began to take up his ideas, presenting for the first time a unified approach among architects, painters, sculptors and designers. In doing so, they brought Arts and Crafts ideals to a wider public.

RED HOUSE (1959). It was designed by Phillip Webb for William Morris. Morris wanted a modern home which would nevertheless be very medieval in spirit'. Morris and Webb designed the house in a simplified Tudor Gothic style, with elements such as steep roofs, prominent chimneys, cross gables, and exposed-beam ceilings. The house is of red brick with tiled roof and an emphasis on natural materials. The garden is an early example of the idea of a garden as a series of exterior "rooms". The "rooms" consisted of an herb garden, a vegetable garden, and two rooms full of old-fashioned flowers and an abundance of fruit trees. Great attention to detail has been given and the overall feel of the building is very rustic.

One designer of this period, Owen Jones, published a book entitled The Grammar of Ornament, which was a sourcebook of historic decorative design elements, largely taken from medieval and Islamic sources. This work in turn inspired the use of such historic sources by other designers.

Edwin Lutyens, along with garden designer and horticulturalist, Gertrude Jekyll was a pioneer of this movement in Britain. He designed country houses in the traditional British style while she designed the landscape and the gardens. They held a firm belief that the interior and exterior of a building must be responsive to one another. The "Lutyens-Jekyll" garden overflowed with hardy shrubbery and herbaceous plantings within a firm classicizing architecture of stairs and balustrade terraces. This combined style, of the formal with the informal, exemplified by brick paths, softened by billowing herbaceous borders, full of flowers, was in direct contrast to the very formal bedding schemes favored by the previous generation in the 19th century. This scheme is visible in the Deanerys Garden House.

The All Saints Church, by William Lethaby is also an example of this style. Although the design has features of Neo gothic style, the form is more natural and organic.

Q. Write short notes on William Morris.The Arts and Crafts Movement was a movement born of ideals that grew out of a concern for the effects of industrialization: on design, on traditional skills and on the lives of ordinary people. It began in Britain around 1880 and quickly spread across America and Europe. William Morris (1834-96) was an English artist, writer, textile designer and socialist associated with the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He was also an environmental campaigner and one of the main founders of the emerging socialist movement of the 19th century. Morris (1834-96) had trained as an architect and had early unfulfilled ambitions to be a painter.In 1861 Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. was established. It produced a range of original domestic furnishings including embroidery, tableware and furniture, stained glass tiles and wallpapers. By the mid-1860s, William Morris concentrated on designing wallpaper. His patterns were inspired by the natural world. In 1883 Morris joined a political party calledthe Social Democratic Federation. He also helped to start a new party called the Socialist League.Morris was deeply inspired by the theorist and critic John Ruskin who examined the relationship between art, society and labor. In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. He was against the mechanization of work. He proposed the work should be joyous and should allow one to remain close to nature.William Morris put Ruskin's philosophies into practice. Inspired by his deep interest and respect for mediaeval art and design, Morris set about reviving and promoting the traditions of individual craftsmanship. He felt that the machine processes of the industrial revolution dehumanized the worker and he saw handcraft as a way for workers to take pride in their creativity and labor. Morriss art and working practices incorporated his socialist principals, he advocated free education, better working conditions and called for an eight hour day. In 1895, he along with architect Phillip Webb designed his residence, the Red House. The house had a very natural, rustic feel. It was made of locally available brick, and a lot of attention to detail was given.He was also something of an environmental campaigner, endeavoring to use natural materials in his work and encouraged people to make things for themselves, proposing the following edict: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. He proposed that good quality furnishings and interiors should be available to all and not just the rich. Sadly, as hand crafted goods were much more expensive to produce and to purchase than machine made products, Morris did not achieve this aim in his lifetime.

Q. Write short notes on Structure Rationalism & Eugne Viollet-le-Duc.The term structural rationalism refers to a 19th-century French movement, usually associated with the theorists Eugne Viollet-le-Duc and Auguste Choisy. The essence of structural rationalism was the belief that architectural form should be determined by a rational study of structural principles.Eugne Viollet-le-Duc (1814 1879) was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect. Viollet-le-Duc is considered by many to be the first theorist of modern architecture.His architectural theory was largely based on finding the ideal forms for specific materials, and using these forms to create buildings. His writings centered on the idea that materials should be used 'honestly'. He believed that the outward appearance of a building should reflect the rational construction of the building.According to him-In architecture there are two necessary ways of being true.1. It must be true according to the program. To be true according to the program is to fulfill exactly and simply the conditions imposed by need.

2. It must be true according to the method of construction. This is to employ the materials according to their qualities and properties, purely questions of symmetry and apparent form are only secondary condition in the presence of our dominant principles.There is speculation that this philosophy was heavily influenced by the writings of John Ruskin, who championed honesty of materials as one of the seven main emphases of architecture. He proffered not only models but also methods which would free architecture from the eclectic irrelevancies of historicism. In this way, his book, Entretiens sur larchitecture came to serve as an inspiration to the avant garde of the last quarter of 19th century. His methods penetrated to those European countries where French tradition of classicism was weak.

In several unbuilt projects for new buildings, Viollet-le-Duc applied the lessons he had derived from Gothic architecture, applying its rational structural systems to modern building materials such as cast iron. He also examined organic structures, such as leaves and animal skeletons, for inspiration. He was especially interested in the wings of bats, an influence represented by his Assembly Hall project.

Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, design for a Concert Hall, dated 1864. Expressing Gothic structural principles in stone, brick and cast iron.