Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts and Crafts Architects of California

This book celebrates one of the richest and most enduring themes in American architectureCalifornia's Arts and Crafts Movement. Echoing the writings of Helen Hunt Jackson, Charles F. Lummis, and Charles Keeler, this movement represented a retreat into a quieter place from the materialism of American society. Anti-commercial, anti-modern, Arts and Crafts practitioners drew on the decorative schemes of English Tudor, Swiss chalet, Japanese temple, and Spanish mission, evoking an earlier time before modern industry and technology intruded. And if only one word is used to describe virtually every Arts and Crafts house in California, that word is woodsy: wood shingles outside, wood paneling inside, a wood fire burning in the homey, welcoming fireplace. Most chapters in this impressive and very readable book focus on one building by a particular architect or designer and illustrate that person's development and influences. Familiar architects such as Bernard Maybeck, Charles and Henry Greene, John Galen Howard, and Julia Morgan are here, but so too are less well- known names who were a vibrant part of the Arts and Crafts Movement.