[05]:NATURE Maßstab⅔

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Barcelona⟶Rīga.START: Glasgow–Bruxelles–Praha–Wien.⚐Monday@9:17pm

„Der Werkbund hat den Jugendstil auf dem Gewissen”, sagte mir ein Architekt, der die Zeit der Darmstädter Ausstellung von 1901 noch erlebt hatte.¹ Der Werkbund hat den Jugendstil auf dem Gewissen... . Die Texte und Bilder, welche der Deutsche Werkbund gelegentlich der fünfundsiebzigsten Wiederkehr der Darmstädter Ausstellung zeigt, mögen die Beziehungen des Werkbundes zum Jugendstil illustrieren. Natürlich hat er zu der Ausstellung auf der Mathildenhöhe keine Stellungnahme abgeben können: Er wurde erst sechs Jahre später gegründet. Aber die Gründung des Werkbundes ist kein Anfang gewesen, sondern eine Bestätigung von Bestrebungen, welche bis weit hinter die Zeit von Darmstadt zurückgehen. Das wird deutlich aus dem Text von Julius Lessing von 1893: Todas estas denominaciones hacen referencia a la intención de crear un arte nuevo, joven, libre y moderno, que representara una ruptura con los estilos dominantes en la época, tanto los de tradición academicista (el historicismo o el eclecticismo) como los rupturistas (realismo o impresionismo). En la estética nueva que se trató de crear, predominaba la inspiración en la naturaleza a la vez que se incorporaban novedades derivadas de la revolución industrial, como el acero y el cristal, superando la pobre estética de la arquitectura del hierro de mediados del siglo.

The major periodical of American Arts & Crafts was the Craftsman, published by the United Crafts at Eastwood, New York, from 1901 to 1916, under the direction of Gustav Stickley. The first issue (October 1901) was entirely devoted to William Morris: Some Thoughts upon His Life, Work and Influence, which gave Morris the whole credit for the journal’s inspiration. The second issue was devoted to Ruskin, the third to The Gilds of the Middle Ages, the fourth to Textiles Old and New, the fifth to Robert Owen and Factory Reform, and the sixth to The Gothic Revival, giving a fair picture of their spectrum of interests. The first American Society of Arts & Crafts was founded in Boston in 1897 with Charles Eliot Norton, Ruskin’s friend, as president. The Guild of Arts & Crafts of New York was founded by four young women in January 1900.¹ There were also Morris Societies, such as the one founded in Chicago in May 1903 with Oscar L. Triggs as secretary. Their Bulletin (November 1903 to February 1905) gives indications of rather widespread interest in Morris. There were seventy-five charter members, most of them from Chicago but a few from other parts of the country. The second issue mentions new Morris circles or possibilities of them in Columbus, Ohio, Toledo, Ohio, and Billings, Montana. Talks on Morris were given in Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Chicago, and an entire course on him was offered at the University of Chicago. In 1902 Triggs published a book on Arts & Crafts in which he wrote: “I count 1860 as the approximate year of its beginning, when William Morris built his famous Red House on the outskirts of London.” ² Back in England, still another body, the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society, had been formed in 1888. At the time of its first exhibition, William Morris realized that none of his books, as a physical object, was worthy of inclusion. His friend, the typographer Emery Walker, gave a lecture on printing in which he presented lantern slides of enlarged type specimens from the fifteenth century. This lecture was a momentous occasion for it opened Morris’ eyes to the creative possibilities within type itself.

(1) The first biography is still the standard one: John William Mackail, The Life of William Morris (London: Longmans, Green, 1899), 2 vols.
(2) From the title of their first prospectus, April 1861.
(3) Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design (3d ed.; Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 107. For a rebuttal of Pevsner, see Herwin Schaefer, Nineteenth Century Modern: The Functional Tradition in Victorian Design (New York: Praeger, 1970), which points out the continuing line of undecorated simplicity in functional and vernacular objects.