Arts and Crafts (fl. 1860-1920) refers to an architectural style and larger art movement started in Britain that resisted the mechanization and mass production of the Industrial Revolution in favor of the traditional trades. Manual labor was considered more honest, in the manner of John Ruskin and his Seven Lamps of Architecture, and flaws in early manufacturing processes lent credence to the movement. It influenced the later, more vernacular Craftsman style in the United States.
"Arts and Crafts" is a term that refers to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, a craftsmen's guild that displayed both decorative and fine arts, which was founded in London in 1887.
The Arts and Crafts movement began in the mid-19th century in Britain. With the Industrial Revolution, factories and mass production made the creation of architectural decoration and building materials much easier, and the traditional craftsmen that had built buildings in the past saw a lesser role. Writers such as John Ruskin considered works of architecture built with human labor to be more honest, and there was a perceived decline in quality with factory production. Another blow was the Great Exhibition of 1851 at London's Crystal Palace. Artists viewed the mass-produced items on display as too ostentatiously detailed and ignorant of the material's qualities.
Early Arts and Crafts reformers sought a more logical system of ornamentation, but they did not consider ideas that were important to the fully-developed movement, such as methods of construction and mass production. These were championed by Augustus Pugin and John Ruskin, who both operated in the Gothic Revival style but shared a distaste of then-modern architecture. The most influential figure of the movement was William Morris, who was an interior and furniture designer. His Red House, designed in association with Philip Webb and completed in 1860, is a very significant example of Arts and Crafts architecture.
Similar organizations to Morris's guild were founded during the late 19th century, which spread the Arts and Crafts movement nationwide. Some notable architects across the world during this time include Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland and Greene & Greene in the United States.
Arts and Crafts architecture is characterized by its vernacular, rustic appearance. Larger buildings such as churches are usually masonry, but houses are commonly wood, and materials are often local and used in a "truthful" manner. Although works may have ornamentation, it is typically minimal and much different from the more elaborate decoration of Victorian revival styles. Roofs have low pitches and broad overhangs. Larger examples have picturesque massing with dormers, bay windows, chimneys, and are often asymmetrical.
Arts and Crafts architecture was succeeded by Art Deco architecture in the United States and early Modern architecture elsewhere, which took the opposite approach towards mass production and embraced standardized, cheap components.