History of Fireplaces in Arts and Crafts

Fireplaces were a crucial feature of Arts and Crafts design. In the period from which the Motion drew its encouragement the fireplace was simply beginning to be sited on the sidewalls of exceptional halls in the houses of the very rich. So the style adopted by Arts and Crafts was a 19th century day pastiche of what was truly constructed throughout the Wars of the Roses. Designs were often in brick although gemstone could be used where it was a neighborhood material. The fireplaces were large, frequently rounded and needed an inglenook feel. Bricks would differ in size, with courses laid vertically as well as conventionally or potentially in a herringbone pattern. Later designs frequently featured tiles and the sort of sinuous designs that are associated with Charles Rennie Macintosh and Art Nouveau. Tiles might have a pastoral scene or a complex flower motif and the Rockwood Pottery that produced early designs was meticulously associated with Morris & Co, the provider that William Morris ran from 1875. We still live with the Arts & Crafts legacy in mock Tudor homes, twentieth century wall paneling and old brick fireplaces. Like pretty much all types of the last 2 hundred years the popularity declines simply to reappear up to one hundred years later. Charles Rennie Mackintosh is regarded as one of the greatest influences on architecture this century. His all too short vocation spanned the turn of the century and generated a variety of ingenious establishments and interiors around his birthplace of Glasgow. Some view Mackintosh as a modernist, others as the link between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. He was most likely neither, drawing his inspiration as much from classical designs as the new industrial art which was starting to prevail all over Europe. Mackintosh was not merely an architect. His design sparkle extended to the interiors of the establishments that he produced. Together with his better half Margaret, Mackintosh believed that the interior style was as important as the exterior form and produced particular products to compliment the overall look of the structure. Fireplaces were, in his viewpoint, the 'glowing focus by having beautiful and symbolic passion'. It was important for him that each design really should meld into the room and be customized for the needs of the manager. His most popular brief was Hill House in Dumbarton, which he created for the publisher, Blackie. In this residence each fireplace is different. The living room design needs specific niches for ornaments, while the fireplace in the library links locations of the room to form a whole. Each has been thought through and tailored so that is part of the room, not merely a fitting. Today's fireplaces in the Mackintosh style usually tend to mirror his graphic type rather than his design panache. Art Nouveau roses interpreted by Mackintosh are common features and evoke turn of the century type. His designs for mantelpieces and complete fireplaces are too individual for 'off the rack' creation and will continue to be unique in the houses where they were installed. Whilst the name of Charles Rennie Macintosh initially comes to mind when early 1900s architecture is discussed, it is undoubtedly Edwin Lutyens who has left the greatest impression on country houses and formal structures in the UK and beyond. Macintosh, from his base in Glasgow rose like a shooting star around the turn of the 20th century just to disappear as quickly

after just 10 to 15 years of architectural design. Lutyens, often together with back garden developer Gertrude Jykell, generated residences in a remarkable late Victorian / Edwardian vernacular style that still thrills today. An examination of countless of Lutyens Country House creates highlights the relevance that he, and more notably his clients, placed on the design of fireplaces. Several of his major, wellknown designs - Castle Drogo, Great Dixter, Little Thakeham and others - feature in excess of 10 fireplaces - lots of specially fashioned to compliment the atmosphere of the room. Barton St. Mary near East Grinstead is a case in point. Fashioned in a turned, South of England type, Barton St. Mary appears like two cottages joined together. Internally, large gemstone inglenooks, huge selection of oak beams and vaulted ceilings evoke an era much earlier than its actual turn-of-the-20th century construction. In the dining room a large fireplace by having projecting rack and converging firesides in herringbone brickwork has an attractive convenience that is almost ageless. Built for neighborhood industrialist, Arthur Hemmingway, Heathcote near Ilkley is altogether a different proposition from Barton St. Mary. Finished in regional gemstone, it is an imposingly outstanding home with echoes of a stately home. Internally neo-classical design reigns by having pillars and ornate coving. In the Dining Room we see an easy bolection design by having a massive Adamesque fireplace design superimposed over it. This is a strange mix, possibly stipulated by Mr. Hemingway himself. Bolection designs, by having their unpretentious molded design were tremendously well-liked, some within much larger Adam-style designs, others forming the complete fireplace were common in further Lutyens residences - Terrific Maytham in Kent, Nashdom in Taplow, Berkshire and Temple Dinsley in Hertfordshire. Lutyens was typically involved in modernisation of older houses where once again the convenience of the bolection design aided blend new with old. Also today, bolection fireplaces are very much idolized. Lutyens designs were absolutely exceptionally influential within the select moneyed class who employed him. However, it was Minsterstone together with a myriad of further neighborhood manufacturers of gemstone, marble and brick designs that adapted his designs for the smaller sized fireplaces to cater for the emerging middle class. Numerous of the fireplace producers from this era have faded away leaving Minsterstone, by having its 120-year history as a lone survivor from a time when the gap between rich and substandard was a lot larger than it is today. The dawning of the twentieth century even saw a range of different stylistic impacts on the fireplace in a method that no further century had experienced. The hefty, gothic style that so typified the middle of the Victorian period was still being created in large amounts. Yet present and prominent by having the cognoscenti was the effective Art Nouveau look, which had taken the country by storm, following the Paris Exhibition of 1881. The roots of Art Nouveau lay in the great European capitals of Vienna and Paris where the artistic elite rebelled from the constraints of the previous generation. The motion took on board the cast iron fireplaces, for so long the trade mark of the suburban advancement of our huge

cities, and provided sinuous ornamentation, which offered these utilitarian items a modern-day look. Tiles on tile sliders began to appear in a wealth of designs inspired by rural pictures along with classic Art Nouveau references such as the grapevine. William Morris' Arts & Crafts motion continued to apply an influence well in to the twentieth century. The inglenook had been a preferred revival feature of Arts and Crafts' fireplaces as it developed seating around the fire - commonly the only hot part of the house. In fact Morris' followers desired countless features of medieval and Tudor fireplaces which they adjusted and integrated into their designs - some including features like overmantels which would never ever have been part of the initial. The 1920s hunted for a different technique that blended business with art. After the First World war, revival was still the name of the game for the middle classes who would like their suburban houses gentrified with mock Tudor beams and fireplaces. Nonetheless, the rich and the creative longed for designs that reflected the twin beliefs of work and leisure. Art Deco filled this void and was born at the 1925 Paris based exhibition titled 'L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Deco et Industriels Modernes'. At the time, the type was frequently called Paris 25. The principles behind the Art Deco integrated: The sacrifice of elaborate detail to operate. The rejection of history in favor of modern concepts The adaptation and adoption of market - its designs and processes. Art Deco design was virtually instantly translated into a wide range of designs, which utilized conventional fireplace materials, however in a more incredible, avant-garde way. Simple downplayed lines were set off by the use of reflective chrome, lacquered wood or tiles to offer a modern-day feeling, which shouted 'Modern!' without being too ornate. Like several of the other trends, Art Deco usually tended to be the preserve of the well off. The newly enriched suburban middle classes were more very likely to need a simple tiled fireplace, ordinarily in green beige or addict. Designs might mirror the Art Deco impact of the Mexican stepped pyramid or might be asymmetric, influenced by the social realism motion. Numerous 1930s tiled fireplaces also presented a wood surround or mantelshelf in English oak. In the shires the fire encompass was more very likely to be in a local material, - brick in the South of England, stone in the North and tiles around partitioning stoke on trent . Designs in these areas were not so influenced by creative trends. Practical features such as bread ranges and hooks for hanging cooking pots lingered on in full or partial use within the country cottage well into the 1930s and 40s.

World War II witnessed a full halt in the house establishment program as websites were channelled into replacing and repairing bombed houses and in the late 1940s the push to re-house families watched a move beyond standard fireplaces in favor of the 'simple to install' electric fire. However as the UK came to be more prosperous throughout the 1950s neighborhood authorities and exclusive home creators began to install tiled fireplaces again developing a routine need for the slabbed designs produced by members of the National Fireplace Manufacturer's Association, which had been formed in 1945. These fireplaces were made down to spec rather than consisting of any sort of design style and, by the middle of the decade, also the wood mantel shelf had faded away.