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DECORATIVE ART The Audio Beam Book 118D541-555
Excerpt
First pages of the volume, freely accessible.
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DECORATIVE ART 1954-55
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decorative 44 TH ANNUAL ISSUE OF THE STUDIO YEAR BOOK OF FURNISHING & DECORATION
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art 1954-5 EDITED BY RATHBONE HOLME & KATHLEEN FROST THE STUDIO PUBLICATIONS LONDON & NEW YORK
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Editors wish to offer their sincere thanks to the architects, designers and manufacturers who are represented in this volume and whose assistance in supplying photographs and information has been of immense help in production. They also wish to express their appreciation of the work undertaken by their correspondents overseas and of the watchfulness and energy they have exhibited in obtaining material which might otherwise have remained unnoticed. Particular acknowledgment is due to the generous co-operation given by Mr Stig Bjorkman, of Stockholm; Mr D. W. Buchanan, of Ottawa; Mr Bryan Holme, of New York City; Mr Hiroshi Ohchi, of Tokyo; Mr Sten Møller, of Copenhagen; Mrs G. L. de Snellman-Jaderholm, of Helsinki; M. Pierre Vago, of Paris; and Miss Carmen Valdes, of Buenos Aires. --- PUBLISHED IN LONDON BY THE STUDIO LTD, 66 CHANDOS PLACE, W.C.2 AND IN NEW YORK BY THE STUDIO PUBLICATIONS INC, 432 FOURTH AVENUE PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY W. S. COWELL LTD, AT THE BUTTER MARKET, IPSWICH
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CONTENTS Editors’ Foreword --- Pattern and Texture in Architectureby Christopher Gotch, ARIBA --- House at Otham, Kent --- House at Tunbridge Wells, Kent --- House at Sheen, London, S.W.14 --- House at Beverly Hills, California --- House at Vancouver, British Columbia --- House at New Canaan, Connecticut --- Interiors and Furnishing --- Silver and Tableware --- Lighting --- Textiles, Carpets and Rugs --- Ceramics --- Glass --- Decoration --- Index ---
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Editors’ Foreword In presenting this, the 44th annual issue of DECORATIVE ART, to our readers, it may not be amiss to remind them and the designers, decorators and producers of goods and accessories for the home, that the all-important essential of a home is that it shall be a place of rest and refreshment, meeting the needs of its occupants, effective in use, delighting eye and mind through materials and craftsmanship, shape, colour and pattern, in tune with life as it is lived today. It may not be out of place, too, to remind designer and producer that, for the great majority, furnishing in the major sense occurs only once in a lifetime. Refurnishing for the many consists in the replacement of articles outworn and the addition of pieces to be treasured—or hated—for life. The design and decoration of furnishing for the home is therefore a matter which is fraught with great dangers as well as great opportunities. Good design fulfilling all the essentials of suitable materials, good workmanship and satisfaction in use creates lifelong friendship and goodwill, but if any of these essentials are omitted the situation is reversed. The owner, forced to live with something defective, described as ‘modern’, is disgruntled, perhaps for life, and a recruit for the ranks of those devoted to the antique. These are fundamental truths of vital importance to designer and maker of furnishings and accessories for the contemporary home, which in no way reduce his opportunities for exercising his imaginative knowledge and skill. In the last few years a revolution has taken place in the lives and living conditions of huge sections of the Western world. The large house, expensive in labour and cost of upkeep, is becoming a drug on the market, due to changes in money values, enormous taxation and inability to secure or pay for domestic help. Labour and space-saving have become important, affecting heating, lighting, storage, planning and arrangement. The benefits of natural light and warmth have increasingly impressed themselves upon a world that has suffered from shortages, and the advantages of new discoveries of effective systems of heating, lighting and power as mechanical aids to labour reduction are impressed on every mind. New materials and methods of construction open out increasing opportunities to delight the eye and satisfy the needs of a modern world in almost everything connected with the home and its enjoyment—all of them providing designer and producer with endless opportunity to display their talents in meeting consumer needs. The service of the consumer as a prime objective of designer and producer needs emphasis. In the revolt against the drabness and stupidity of much of the production of the earlier part of this century, a new danger is revealing itself. Shapes which have evolved through years of trial and error as the most suitable have been discarded in the search for improvement, and change—for the sake of being different, or as a revolt against errors of the past—is tending to produce not only articles more suitable to the age but a number of bizarre
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pieces of exciting nonsense, amusing and entertaining to look at, which will not bear the test of time and continuous use. In our search for new expression and improvement, we need to keep in mind that furniture and furnishings are usually permanent acquisitions to be lived with a very long time. There is still enormous scope for the designer within the limitations thus imposed. Let us have exciting new designs by all means. If all designers kept to a solid and well-tried formula, there would be no need for publications such as this. But let us also be sure that, when one design supersedes another, the excitement of a new shape or form is not used as camouflage for jettisoning something we cannot afford to lose. The late war was the turning-point between one social state and another. By now we have become accustomed to the difference, although still regretting the cost of living, and we have the knowledge and experience to meet the design needs of our modern domestic environment. The process of readjustment, however, has inevitably been responsible for a certain amount of speculative design and manufacture, not all of which can claim to have been successful in its service to the needs of the new age. But there is now a more confident approach, based on recognition of past errors, and it is interesting to focus attention on the work illustrated in this and the last two or three issues of DECORATIVE ART where it will be seen that in many parts of the world developments are taking place which may well denote a new period in domestic design. It is a fact that from the experimental stage have emerged furniture and accessories which are now mass-produced and—a point of great importance—at prices the ordinary purse can meet. Producers cannot change processes of manufacture overnight and are forced to rely on the courageous few who are willing to test the market before embarking on wide-scale reorganization of factories and output. And it takes time for the public to accept a break from tradition, as witness the ‘reproduction’ furniture which is still being produced. Indeed, even at the end of 1945 it was forecast in some directions that as a result of war austerity, a return to frills and fussy decoration would be the vogue. Yet in spite of all the difficulties, it would seem that contemporary furniture has come into its own, and retailers who a year or two ago would have displayed much the same pieces as before the Second World War, are now showing—and what is more important, selling—domestic furniture and accessories designed in the modern idiom by the younger generation of craftsmen. For this change of heart DECORATIVE ART has the temerity to claim some of the credit. Since its first issue in 1903 and for many years alone in an age of post-Victorianism, it has encouraged designers and manufacturers by publishing work which was far in advance of its time, and now with some slight and justifiable pride it sees its pioneering efforts bearing fruit. Interior decoration and furnishing, however, is not all. An essential part of domestic amenity, it needs the background of the house itself—the jewel-case to contain the jewels. That the shape of the house and the planning of its amenities are all-important is now widely recognized, but it is not so well understood that patterns and textures of outer and inner surfaces equally contribute to the enjoyment of the home. Those outside are influenced by considerations of expanse, shape, proportions, environment and materials, while those inside must largely be governed by the individual requirements of the occupant, the purpose of the rooms and their contents. Materials now available provide the possibility of many pleasing variations both in texture and pattern—the link between architecture and interior decoration and furnishing. We have therefore thought it valuable that a discussion of the many alternatives should form the introductory article to this issue. This is contributed by Christopher Gotch, ARIBA, a young architect with a healthy respect for the lessons of the past and an equally healthy contempt for conventions which do not meet present-day needs. Mr Gotch, Chief Assistant Architect to the Hertfordshire County Council, was formerly concerned with housing re-development in Stepney for the London County Council and has a special interest in the design of individual dwellings for private ownership. THE EDITORS
