Arts and Crafts and Commericalism

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Ladies’ Luncheon Room

My Pittsburgh House

Growing up, my family lived in an older Pittsburgh neighborhood called Regent Square. Our house was built in the early 1900's, however did not appear to be one which exuded all of the "old world" styles of buildings which I characteristically associated with older homes. My parents's style was comprised of high-back chairs with carvings in them, similar to those of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Ladies’ Luncheon Room. I could not make many distinctions between what I had and other kids did, but I do remember feeling like even the chairs in school were not "nice" or as "quality" as the ones I had at home. Probably, they were as sturdy and possibly as costly, but because they were commercialized, they did not appear that way to me.  Later on, I came to find out that the homes in my neighborhood, and mine in particular were classified as "Arts and Crafts" style. Later, I went to visit Falling Water, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous homes which was part of the Arts and Crafts movement. To me, Arts and Crafts style was the "norm" for architecture. Later on, however, I moved with my family to a new neighborhood complex. It was put up relatively quickly and many of the houses were similar if not exactly the same as one another. It was a difficult move for my parents because they were giving up their Arts and Crafts, well put together house to a big house, but one that compared to the previous one seemed like it was made out of cardboard. I appreciate the Arts and Crafts style for this reason. It emphasizes hard work and individuality as opposed to conformity and commercialism. As referenced in an earlier blog post of mine, the relationship between art and commercialism is one that is ever-present in modern art, and in this case architecture. In recent times, it  has even expanded to include TV and music. It would be interesting in the new visualization building to have some kind of monitor for this. For example, whenever a piece of art is produced for a commercial or for profit use, a link is with the art explaining the significance of the sponsorship so to speak and it's context in history.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water

As for now, observing what is commercialized and what not is left to the individual. Maybe within the responsibility we can learn a bit from the simplicity and genuine nature that was applied in the Arts and Crafts movement.