At the opening of the twentieth century, Massachusetts architects struggled to create an authentic new look that would reflect their clients' increasingly informal way of life. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement in England, the result was a charming style that proved especially appropriate for the rapidly expanding suburbs and vacation houses in the state--charming but overlooked, principally because the style is somewhat difficult to describe. The Arts and Crafts Houses of Massachusetts brings these homes, hidden in plain sight, the attention they deserve. Meticulously researched and with abundant color photos, the book is the only work focusing on the state's Arts and Crafts domestic architecture and the only one to include an illustrated field guide. It is also the first book to explore the use of this cutting-edge style in designing buildings for estate servants, transit workers, and renters--groups that historically lacked access to professionally designed homes.

This book offers the first full-scale examination of the architecture associated with the Arts and Crafts movement that spread throughout New England at the turn of the twentieth century. Although interest in the Arts and Crafts movement has grown since the 1970s, the literature on New England has focused on craft production. Meister traces the history of the movement from its origins in mid-nineteenth-century England to its arrival in the United States and describes how Boston architects including H. H. Richardson embraced its tenets in the 1870s and 1880s. She then turns to the next generation of designers, examining buildings by twelve of the region's most prominent architects, eleven men and a woman, who assumed leadership roles in the Society of Arts and Crafts, founded in Boston in 1897. Among them are Ralph Adams Cram, Lois Lilley Howe, Charles Maginnis, and H. Langford Warren. They promoted designs based on historical precedent and the region's heritage while encouraging well-executed ornament. Meister also discusses revered cultural personalities who influenced the architects, notably Ralph Waldo Emerson and art historian Charles Eliot Norton, as well as contemporaries who shared their concerns, such as Louis Brandeis. Conservative though the architects were in the styles they favored, they also were forward-looking, blending Arts and Crafts values with Progressive Era idealism. Open to new materials and building types, they made lasting contributions, with many of their designs now landmarks honored in cities and towns across New England.

Fine craftsmanship and handiwork, originality in design, aesthetic purity, and honest use of materials in both decorative and utilitarian objects were the ideals embraced by Boston's Society of Arts and Crafts. This book celebrates the organization's centenary with splendid examples of metalwork, jewelry textiles, furniture, ceramics, photography, and more. 273 illustrations, 52 in color. D.

Decor.

H. Langford Warren (1857-1917) was an important link in the chain of individuals who contributed to the architectural practice, theories of design, and the teaching of architectural history in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Best known in the Boston area, Warren first worked under the renowned architect Henry Hobson Richardson before establishing his own practice. Friends and colleagues during this period included Charles Eliot Norton, the noted art historian, and Harvard's Charles Herbert Moore, a leading Ruskinian painter. Hired by Harvard University in 1893, Warren developed its architectural curriculum. In 1897 he helped found Boston's Society of Arts and Crafts. At the time of his death in 1917, Warren was Dean of the School of Architecture at Harvard and President of the Society of Arts and Crafts. At the turn of the century, Warren's philosophical vision offered a conservative and ethnocentric perspective attractive to many Bostonians and to a significant segment of Americans nationwide. According to this view, English culture was the basis of American culture. Through his work at Harvard and in the Arts and Crafts movement, he articulated and promoted an aesthetic guided by an attachment to the past, and he encouraged his students at Harvard to revive and reinterpret English and Anglo-American models. Another characteristic of Warren's aesthetic was "restraint," a quality generally attributed to the region's Puritan settlers. "Restraint" also meant a rejection of both the lavish ornamentation of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the more original styles such as Art Nouveau that were emerging at the turn of the century. Following the ideals of John Ruskin, William Morris, and later leaders of the English Arts and Crafts movement, Warren and his architect-colleagues promoted a close collaboration with the craftsmen who enhanced their buildings. The resulting building designs represent a significant contribution to the development of American Arts and Crafts architecture, complementing the proto-modern work of designers such as Frank Lloyd Wright. In fact, Arts and Crafts architecture in North America was extremely diverse. Meister examines the greater complexity of this architecture by exploring the eclectic historicism of Warren, a key figure in the movement that was centered in Boston.

Architectural drawings and detailed descriptions of houses complement a social history and study of the architecture and construction of seventeenth-century wooden-frame houses of Massachusetts