Arts and Crafts Architecture

For about three decades at the turn of the century, Arts and Crafts architecture and the theories behind it caught the attention of the Western world as the Gothic revival was set on a new and vigorous course by the ideas of Pugin, Ruskin and Morris. Looking back to an idealised medieval world in which the artist was also a craftsman, they opposed the inhumanity of the Industrial Revolution and showed the way to a new future in which the Gothic spirit could serve people's needs. A whole generation of architects, artists and craftsmen was inspired by their ideals of truth to tradition, to materials and to function to create an architecture of freedom and originality.