Beyond the Bungalow: Grand Homes in the Arts and Crafts Tradition, Gibbs Smith, 2005.      

Paul Duchscherer’s latest foray into bungalowbilia doesn’t really deal with bungalows at all.  His Beyond the Bungalow (brightly photographed by Linda Svendsen), on the heels of his earlier The Bungalow (1995), Inside the Bungalow  (1997), and Outside the Bungalow (1999), examines, as its subtitle explains, grand homes in the Arts and Crafts tradition. An effort at nomenclature as well as explanation, this latest volume classifies and describes those larger-than-bungalow homes that share, in their design principles and philosophy, at least a family resemblance to the, if you will, basic bungalow.

While some might question denying big homes the bungalow rubric (Duchscherer recognizes the problem given the majestic Greene and Greene "ultimate bungalows"), he makes a strong case for recognizing separately the relevance and beauty of those two and three-story large footprint houses of the 1900-1930 era that so impressively remind us of the best of American pre-Depression residential architecture. His typology of the big home is fourpart – The American Foursquare, The Rustic Home, Craftsman (which he describes as classic Arts and Crafts), and Craftsman Crossovers, with its own nine subcategories: Swiss Chalet, Oriental Style, Prairie, Shingle, Colonial Revival, Mission, Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and English Cottage Style. Each type is described generically and illustrated with exemplar cases.

The book, certainly a handsome volume, is saddled with an unfortunately undersized type, and a rather abrupt ending. A useful list of open-to-the public historic homes is appended.

Christian and Christen Gladu, Bungalow Plans, Gibbs Smith, Salt Lake City, 2002.

The second coming of the arts and crafts movement brings with it a revival of many of the aspects of original era. In Bungalow Plans, Gladu and Gladu continue the tradition of disseminating house plans originally promoted by pioneers like  Gustav Stickley who, through magazines and catalogs, offered the broad middle class architectural drawings – plans of simple, affordable, well designed homes – that incorporated the Arts and Crafts ideals of John Ruskin and William Morris.

The Gladus offer 25 bungalow plans in their book, each accompanied by photographs, text, and information on designers and builders. Their aim is not only to show different kinds of  homes – everything from 600 square foot garlows (not yet in my on-line dictionary, but apparently garage and other "accessory" units) to 4000 square foot "ultimate" bungalows – but to provide practical advice on adapting stock  plans to modern, especially environmental, concerns. Introductory chapters put the plan book approach in historical perspective and offer useful context on "bungalow anatomy" and building costs. A section on resources concludes the volume.

Linda Parry, Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, new edition, Thames and Hudson, 2005.

Parry, a Deputy Keeper at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, completed the original version of this book to commemorate the centenary of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, the organization that from its founding in1888 to 1916 provided the primary British venue for showcasing the range of the new decorative art – furniture, rugs, metalwork, textiles – that so influenced the fashion, furnishings and architecture of the era. The Society not only gave us the term – "arts and crafts" – that has come to encapsulate the movement, it provided respectability to an alternative art and design form built upon craft, modest studio and workshop production, and sympathetic retailers, an art form that enjoyed broad public success then, and now, in  revival for the past 30 years.

Parry’s focus on textiles shown in the Exhibition Society shows limits her survey of course, not only by geography (the exhibitors were all British), but by period. While she provides an introductory chapter on arts and crafts principles and reviews the work of early practitioners including William Morris, the major contribution of the book, and what gives it its uniqueness, is the detailed and comprehensive description of the exhibited textiles in terms of design, materials, production, technology, and sales. Parry’s thesis, so far as there is one, is that the exhibitions, by giving extensive space and attention to textiles, provided a new legitimacy for the medium, moving it, along with the other decorative arts, toward greater parity with painting and sculpture.

This book, one of a recent spate of specialized volumes on textiles, is  probably more for the specialist than the general interested reader. While the text is on the clunky side, the book’s extensive color illustrations of rugs, wallpapers, woven and printed fabrics, lace, and clothing are wonderful. Parry also provides a useful directory of textile designers, craftsmen, manufacturers and retailers.