Past Meets Present

The Arts and Crafts movement was a time when craftsmen decided to take back ownership of the sales of their products. With artists in charge, hand crafted details became the focus. The look was comprised of intricate, natural motifs, materials like ceramics, copper, pewter, and dark hardwoods. The movement had many curved forms contrasted with straight lines.

As the streamlined technology of skyscrapers, cruise ships and airplanes were cropping up across America, the elegant designs of Art Deco drew from these influences. Intricate, layered lines mathematically drawn, geometric shapes curves and angles are the signature look of the movement, with both gilded and polished materials taking center stage, sometimes against a black backdrop.

The Bauhaus movement is named after the German design school founded by Walter Gropius. This community-driven teaching school was focused on simplified products and functionality. Common decorative themes were geometric shapes and/or angular curves. Tubular bent steel, chrome plated metal finishes and monochromatic color schemes were also common features.

From Bauhaus rose modernism, which incorporated some of the former movement's decorative elements, such as geometry, but with even more concise and simplified forms. These forms also started to incorporate nature in the curves used and more neutral color palettes with some gold, dark greens and browns.