Lots of articles on my favorite style of design & architecture in newspapers and magazines lately; the Arts & Crafts renaissance continues to go mainstream.
- Home Style: Bungalows Cozy by Design
, in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle; - a primer on Arts & Crafts style in the Boston Globe’s real estate section;
- the Asheville Citizen-Times has a good story on the Grove Park Inn and the annual conference / show there;
- The Los Angeles Times reports that Pasadena continues to move toward more modern designs in its infill projects, threatening many of the area’s Craftsman aficionados;
- The Columbus Dispatch profiles William Morris and gives some background on the movement itself;
- and The Berkeley Daily Planet has a profile of some of that (my home town!) city’s historic properties and the character they lend to Berkeley’s neighborhoods.
But the critics said that this style was on it’s way out! If they only understood.
I think the “style” – as it applies to cheap, surface level decoration of new subdivision homes – is definitely on its way out. It is not an “easy” style like pop modernism; it doesn’t mix that well with other styles of architecture and design, for instance, and it requires more knowledge and subtlety. So in a way, the “decorative” level of Craftsman movement furniture etc may be on its way out. I would not be surprised by that. I think, though, that more serious aficionados of the movement are becoming greater in number.