Hewn and Hammered

Frank Lloyd Wright gallery opening

It's a bit off the beaten path, but if you find yourself anywhere near Racine, WI (just a bit south of Milwaukee) you could not do better than to stop at the SC Johnson headquarters, where a new gallery devoted to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright is opening this week. The initial offering - a broad meditation on Wright's most popular Prairie-style work - will run for a year, to be followed by other exhibits focusing on various aspects of the architect and designer's work.

Several buildings at the SC Johnson campus are Wright creations, so you'll want to schedule a tour to see those as well.

Horta’s staircase for Hôtel Tassel

In scientist Emile Tassel's Brussels home, this staircase was designed and built in 1893 by the great Nouveau and Deco designer and architect Victor Horta, who also designed other parts of the house - which is generally considered the first true Art Nouveau building.

 

The Craftsman: issue 3

 

The third item in our continuing series is Volume 1, number 3 of The Craftsman: December 1901 (3 meg PDF).

The Craftsman: Issue 2

 

The second item in our continuing series is Volume 1, number 2 of  The Craftsman: November 1901 (3 meg PDF).

The Craftsman: Almost Every Issue, Now Online

 

I've recently been gifted a large archive of every issue (bar two - issues 8 and 9 from the 1916 volume are missing) of Gustav Stickley's The Craftsman, beginning with volume 1, number 1 in October of 1901. I'll be posting one every few days for the coming weeks, starting with the first issue today. 

Here you go: Volume 1, number 1 of The Craftsman: October 1901 (3 meg PDF)

Thanks very much to the archival-minded friend - another big fan of the public domain - who passed these on to me!

Voysey clocks & more

from our friend Christopher Vickers:

Following on from the CFA Voysey Clocks postings here last August [Voysey clocks; Chris Vickers & Voysey], readers may be interested in Christopher Vickers new page featuring many of the period Voysey clocks still known to exist.

Chris would be very interested to receive further information / images of Voysey clocks, or really anything at all designed by Voysey!

Gustav Stickley library table, from the Metropolitan Museum collection

Library table, ca. 1906
Gustav Stickley (American, 1858–1942); Craftsman Workshops
Syracuse, New York
Oak, leather; H. 30 in. (76.2 cm), Diam. 55 in. (139.7 cm)
Gift of Cyril Farny, in memory of his wife, Phyllis Holt Farny, 1976 (1976.389.1)

Inspired by William Morris, Gustav Stickley founded The United Crafts (later known as Craftsman Workshops) in 1898. Stickley was greatly influenced by Ruskin and Morris, his travels to Europe, and important contemporary journals such as The Studio and Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration. Initially managing the firm as a guild, Stickley participated in profit-sharing with his employees, but as the operation grew, regular factory standards were implemented. The Craftsman line was introduced to the public in 1900. This hexagonal library table is made of oak with a leather top ostensibly adhered by overt circular tacks, and utilizes visible joinery with tenon-and-key joints. Illustrated in the November 1902 issue of The Craftsman, the Arts and Crafts periodical published by Gustav Stickley between 1901 and 1916, the hexagonal library table became a popular item in Stickley's sales inventory.

Sacramento Historic House

Tracy Doolittle lives here in Sacramento and is just as much a fan of our beautiful old houses as I am. For $300, she'll do very extensive history on your home, finding out a timeline (and biographical highlights) of its past owners & residents, a permit history, the original property or historic neighborhood map, and other information - including, sometimes, historic photographs. She has also written a how-to article if you'd like to attempt this yourself.

A useful service, certainly. Tracy also has a website, Sacramento Historic House, which profiles several representative properties (including the beautiful and enormous Cranston-Geary house, in whose listing she gives a shout-out to us). Several of the most impressive Victorians are already listed, and it looks like she's adding new structures all the time. There's a blog, too, with many recent entries focusing on the historic homes and castles she encountered on a recent trip to London.

Christopher Vickers & CFA Voysey

I first encountered Christopher Vickers' work when a friend showed me photos of a clock he built (he's also reproduced another famous Voysey clock with which you may be more familiar). Based on C. F. A. Voysey's original plans, the clock is built from 7,000-year-old bog oak, and is inlaid with (faux) ivory. The original was built by Voysey in 1921 for a client - the same one for whom Voysey designed the beautiful Holly Mount in Beaconsfield. Voysey was known for his clocks, of course; apparently, he loved the confluence of lettering, machine, and furniture that these tiny and complicated objects represented.

Vickers is a scholar of all things Voysey, and 20th-century British design in general, with quite a bit of background on this great and often overlooked designer / artist / architect on his website; my own love of Voysey's work springs mainly from my interest in typography and Voysey's wonderful and expressive hand-lettering (see the wallpaper advertisement here, taken from Mr. Vickers' site) - so seeing Vickers' exceptional work, and through it his obvious love for the combined subtlety and detail that I've always appreciated in Voysey, really impressed and resonated with me.

My favorite piece of Voysey-designed furniture in Vickers collection is this replica dining chair with arms, originally designed in 1902. Vickers' reproduction sells for £1850, and appears to be completely true to the original.

Other impressive bits of Mr. Vickers' work include unique items of Arts & Crafts lighting; a number of beautiful and useful chests in a variety of sizes and configurations; beautiful and sturdy tables, including some based on Voysey designs for Hollymount and other homes; inlaid wooden boxes; cabinetry and shelving, including several that feature hardware hand-forged by Vickers; and a number of pieces of metalwork, produced in the Gimson-Cotswold tradition in just the way we like it: "by hammer & hand."

Vickers' work is art and craft, and some of the finest contemporary A&C furniture I've seen. If you're interested, you can see pieces on display from September 10 to 24 at the 2nd annual Arts & Crafts Exhibition in Gloucestershire's Prinknash Abbey Park; from September 13 to 28, you can actually visit his workshop in Frome, as it will be open to the public during Somerset Art Weeks. His work will also be included in the Ernest Gimson and the Arts & Crafts Movement exhibit in Leicester, November 8 2008 through March 1 2009.

the Greene & Greene-ing of America

This past week's Arroyo Monthly, a free publication mailed mostly to homeowners in Pasadena, California, includes the following article by Michael Cervin on the increased popularity of Greene & Greene not just in Southern California but nationwide:

Architects Charles and Henry Greene are known around the world for their striking Arts and Crafts homes, which so thoroughly punctuate the Southern California landscape. It's perhaps ironic then that the late Henry Greene's own home, the one he initially built for his mother-in-law, was razed in 1968 and is now a parking structure. Charles Greene's home on Arroyo Terrace still stands. Thus fared the personal residences of the architects whose names are more closely associated with Pasadena than those of any of their peers. The brothers built 75 structures in the Crown City during their career, mainly custom residences, of which nearly 40 are still standing.

“Other architects have enjoyed more famous careers,” noted Edward Bosley, James N. Gamble Director of the Gamble House. “Others have produced more buildings. Still others have earned more notoriety for progressive designs that advanced the discipline of architecture. But no other architects have left us with a more glowing legacy of beauty, craft, livability and spirit than Charles and Henry Greene.”

British architecture critic Reyner Banham, quoted in a book by former Gamble House curator Randell Makinson, said that Greene & Greene residences looked completely in their element in Southern California, “and especially so in Pasadena – that it's often difficult to conceive of them as part of any nationwide, let alone worldwide, movement. They seem so specific to that Arroyo Culture of which they are the chief ornaments and the true treasure-houses.”

Though the term “bungalow” is associated with the Greenes, most of their best-known homes are not true bungalows, which were conceived in India as modest one-story structures. Certainly the Greenes started out designing homes for the common man. The Architectural Record referred to their work in a 1906 essay: “The houses are largely successful because they so frankly meet economic, domestic and practical conditions. Their chief characteristics are their lowness, big overhanging roofs, their shingled walls and the absence of architectural ornament.”

read the full article on the Arroyo Monthly site