Room With a View - Bellimissimo Manor, Pasadena, USA

The Arts and Crafts movement first emerged in England during the 1800's and quickly moved to America. This movement challenged the elaborate tastes of the Victorian era. It embraced a society in which the worker could take pride in his craftsmanship and skill. Manufactured goods were often poor in design and quality. So, reformist thinkers such as John Ruskin and William Morris proposed that life would be better if individual craftsmanship could be revived by both artisans and the common "worker." This would create a 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 and enhance the lives of ordinary people, while at the same time, provide decent employment for the craftsman and artist.

This philosophy of "craftsmanship" took to the extreme in England. The result was exquisitely made pieces that could only be afforded by the very wealthy. Thus the idea of art for the people quickly lost it's momentum. This evolved English Arts and Crafts style came to be known as the "Aesthetic Style" which shared some characteristics with the French/Belgian Art Nouveau movement.

But, in America, the Arts and Crafts movements found a permanent home. With it's sea to shinning sea of emerging middle class, America embraced the idea of the common man celebrating his skillfulness. In New York, Gustav Stickley served a burgeoning demand for affordable, decent looking furniture. By using factory methods to produce basic components, and utilizing craftsmen to finish and assemble, he was able to produce vast quantities of sturdy, serviceable furniture which still survives today. This rectilinear, simpler American Arts and Crafts form dominated American architecture, interiors, and furnishings. It came to be known as the "mission style" because of it's American Southwest influence. From Chicago to California, Mission Style interiors were often embellished with Native American patterns, or Southwestern Native American artifacts such as rugs, pottery, and baskets.

Charles and Henry Greene were important Mission style architects working in California. Their southwestern style incorporated Mission and Spanish architecture, which included thick wooden beams and large rock foundations. The result was a blending of the arts and crafts rectilinear form with traditional Spanish colonial architecture. This Spanish American "High Craftsman" style dominated the California landscape. A more cost effective interpretation of this style quickly moved east and the one story "American Bungalow" was born.

Today, the Arts and Craft movement is seeing a huge revival through out the United States. So huge, that few people in this country know of it's British origins. Designers are incorporating the "Mission" style into contemporary furniture, and architects are once again designing with thick beams and rock foundations.