Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
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40 FALL 2015 of H. Langford Warren, one of the 12 founders of the Society of Arts and Crafts and the founder of Harvard's architectural program. "I was immediately excited because this was an im- portant link to our knowledge of our history. The project fell into my lap; obviously I had to write that book. But even as I wrote about Warren, I knew there was a big- ger subject in the story of New England Arts and Crafts architecture." In her new book she shows that while the Arts and Crafts–era architects of New England solidly endorsed the stylistic past, dismissing Beaux Arts as "overornamented" and Art Nouveau as mere novelty, they were thoroughly contemporary when it came to technology and often used new 20th-century building materials like stucco, concrete, and steel. "At first, they tried to revive medieval building prac- tices, holding 'mutually helpful relations' with craftsmen as one of their principal tenets," Meister says. "But they were practical as well as open to new ways of doing things. Many clients were attracted to concrete because of fire concerns, and architects moved to concrete because casting it is so much cheaper than carving stone." Especially interesting is the way Meister connects the influence of important Boston thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Eliot Norton, and Louis D. Brandeis to the kinds of buildings erected in New England during and after the Arts and Crafts movement. The book has garnered considerable interest, and she has lectured as far afield as Chicago's Glessner House. For scholars of New England architecture, Maureen Meister's book is invaluable; for residents of the area, it is a won- derful guide to our physical environment. entry waly and bathroom Arts & Crafts Architecture: History and Heritage in New England, published by University Press of New England, © 2014 © NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/ OSKAR PROCTOR (TOP), BY © NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/NADIA MACKENZI E (BOTTOM) The Neo-Gothic staircase is an example of the dense and complex style. Above, the gardens surrounding the Morris house inspire today's cottage gardens. inspire