William Morris and 19th Century Architecture

           William Morris, a designer and manufacturer of crafts, largely influenced the Arts and Crafts movements and worked towards reshaping modern architecture in the 19^th century.  He is considered one of the most versatile and influential designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England—a movement associated with social reform and romantic, medieval fold decorative style.

                Morris’s distaste for industry and his taste for fine art and high quality led him to be a strong supporter of the complete reform of industrial society. He believed in the union of social and political issues with design and worked to reform industry with his own model of business exemplified in Morris & Co. Through his model he emphasized relaxed working conditions and the creation of art. According to Morris, leisure involved four things: meeting a vocation, pleasant surroundings, a certain scope of variation, and usefulness. He believed in individual development, the abolition of the division of labor and better working conditions.

Morris’s vision of applying his values of high quality, crafted fine art to commercial design and production was key to the evolution of design. He believed there to be an uneven pattern of forced ownership in society that stripped production of the “expression by man of his pleasure in labour” that created true art. He once wrote: “what is an artist but a workman who determined that, whatever else happens, his work shall be excellent? Or, to put it in another way: the decoration of workmanship, what is it but the expression of man’s pleasure in successful labour?” For Morris, work was to be driven by two forces—nature (the need to make a living) and desire (love of art)—in order to produce his vision of society.

His value originality in design and his belief that art’s inferior quality was a product of poor quality of life pushed him to champion social, commercial, and design reform. His belief in nature as the perfect example of God’s design manifested itself in a common theme of nature-inspired designs such as the floral tapestry design below.

Morris brought quality and life to modern design with vision reminiscent of the ideals of John Ruskin. “No person is able to give useful or definite help towards the special applications of art, unless he is entirely familiar with the conditions of labour and materials involved in the work”—a sentiment Ruskin expressed that made a great impression on Morris. He shared Ruskin’s value of the decorative arts as well as his views on work and business morality. In Morris’s case he made efforts towards practical expression of those values through his business. Both Morris and Ruskin advocated social harmony over individual profit and believed in providing opportunities to give workman creative freedom. In the minds of Morris and Ruskin a happy worker in a beautiful environment led to the creation of beautiful things.

Morris’s impact shaped many designers’ perceptions and ideals of the quality of design in the industrial age and helped form the language of modern architecture in the 19^th century.

Harvey, Charles and Press, Jon. (1995). John Ruskin and the Ethical Foundations of Morris & Company. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(3), 181-194. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25072636

Kinna, Ruth. (2000). William Morris: Art, Work, and Leisure. Journal of the History of Ideas, 61(3), 493-512.  10.1353/jhi.2000.0027