The Arts & Crafts Interior: Inspired Rooms, Vintage and New
Walls in a period green complement antique Stickley furniture. Photo: Ed Addeo
The Arts & Crafts movement sees beauty where it really lives: that’s why there have been so many vernacular and regional expressions. Wherever you live, Arts & Crafts is there to speak to you. Its buildings may be stone or brick or shingled, depending on custom; its motifs may refer to the designs of the Navajo or to local fauna.
Under the Arts & Crafts umbrella you’ll find expressions as different as those of British architect C.F.A. Voysey, American Arts & Crafts pioneer Gustav Stickley, Pasadena’s Greene & Greene, and the Midwest Prairie Style of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Moravian tiles and Pugin-designed wallpaper in a 1908 Tudor. Photo: William Wright
Today’s houses and interiors are no less varied. What they have in common is an organic simplicity, at least by Victorian-period standards.
Still, they are fully decorated, proto-modern but not Modern. Woodwork and trim, wallpaper and paint, rugs and pillows and portières contribute to the cozy effect.
Highland Park design rug from today’s Stickley.
