The east façade of William Morris's Red House, Bexleyheath, LondonPervasive and revolutionary the Arts and crafts motility originated in England in the 1880s. Evolving from the theories and practices of the English Aesthetic movement and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, information technology would become i of the most influential blueprint movements of the modernistic age. Its impact was felt across Europe and America. Promoted past cardinal figures including the artist-designer William Morris, and the swell Victorian critic and writer, John Ruskin, it offered an creative and philosophical reaction to the ostentatious, industrialized designs of the high-Victorian era.

Fueled past concern over the detrimental effects of industrialization on pattern, adroitness and the lives of workers, the movement established a new set of principles for living and working.  In contrast to the dehumanizing factories and mass production of the industrial age, it emphasized social reform through new workshop practices, and promoted original, innovative designs rather than slavish revivals of historic styles. Craft objects were produced in all media: metalwork, ceramics, glass, textiles and furniture, while compages typically provided the context within in which these objects were brought together.

The Arts and crafts movement provided a powerful impetus to Wright's architectural principles, and shaped the work of his contemporaries in Europe and Smashing United kingdom who sought to create a vocabulary of design they considered advisable for mod life. The Arts and Crafts movement in America was part of a much larger plow-of-the-century international endeavour for reform in the arts. While information technology certainly owes a tremendous debt to foreign sources, American architects and designers were able to establish an aesthetic wholly split up from that of Europe, adapting their work to regional circumstances, with variations dependent on local climate, landscape and building methods and materials. Every bit the historian H. Allen Brooks, succinctly states:

"Arts and crafts was a movement and not a style. It was an attitude, an approach to a problem that advocated no specific vocabulary of forms. It pleaded for simplicity, elimination, and respect for materials. Its most salutary effect, in hindsight, was the purification of public gustatory modality."

Master Bedroom, Hill House, Helensburgh, UK, Charles Rennie Mackintosh Courtesy of the National Trust for Scotland

Other countries also adjusted Arts and crafts philosophies on a national and regional basis, shaping these principles to their ain needs. In Scotland, Charles Rennie Mackintosh created an compages that drew from diverse sources, including English Craft, Continental Art Nouveau, and the traditional baronial compages of his homeland.  In 1903, the Viennese designers, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser founded the Wiener Werkstätte, an arrangement devoted to the design and sale of high quality craft products.  Modeled on C.R. Ashbee's London-based Guild of Handicraft, the Wiener Werkstätte sought to enhance the standards of Viennese craftsmanship, integrating craft and the modernistic interior, and promoting the ideal of decorative art.  Wright himself recognized the parallels between the Vienna Secession and his own piece of work, stating in his 1929 Kahn lectures, "I came upon the Secession during the winter of 1910. At that time Herr Professor  Wagner of Vienna, a great architect, the architect Olbrich of Darmstadt, the remarkable painter Klimt of Austria and the sculptor Metzner of Berlin—not bad artists all—were the soul of that movement. And at that place was the work of Louis Sullivan and myself in America."

Wright's exposure to the international scene came through multiple sources. International Expositions, held in Chicago in 1893, and St. Louis in 1904, provided Wright with two important points of contact with gimmicky design movements in Europe. International design ideals were disseminated in America through journals such as The Craftsman, House Cute, and Ladies Home Periodical, besides every bit through clubs and societies that sponsored lectures and programs. Wright'due south personal associate with leading designers and theorists, such as the English designer C. R. Ashbee, were also important factors that shaped his early career.

Banner Image:
Dining Room, Frederick C. Robie House, 1910, Drove of the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust
Photograph: Henry Fuermann