'Think first of the walls': surfaces of generosity - William Morris, Philip Webb and the arts and crafts domestic interior

Kite, Stephen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6320-4110 2022. 'Think first of the walls': surfaces of generosity - William Morris, Philip Webb and the arts and crafts domestic interior. McVicar, Mhairi, Kite, Stephen and Drozynski, Charles, eds. Generosity and Architecture, Routledge, pp. 26-36. (10.4324/9781003211815-4)

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Abstract

ABSTRACT ‘Whatever you have in your rooms think first of the walls, for they are that which makes your … home’, said the Arts and Crafts pioneer William Morris (1834–1896). His News from Nowhere (1892) opposes Victorian utilitarianism to present ‘the spirit of the new days’ as a ‘delight in the life of the world; intense and overweening love of the very skin and surface of the earth, on which man dwells’. He envisions surfaces equally expressive of the ‘generosity and abundance of life’. With John Ruskin’s Gothic characteristics of ‘Sacrifice’ and ‘Redundance’ in mind, the Gothic architecture in which Morris sought inspiration is generous. This essay examines these surfaces of generosity in the work of William Morris, architect Philip Webb (1831–1915), and the Arts and Crafts domestic interior: firstly, through the medieval spirit of Red House (the home Philip Webb designed for Morris, as his first married home, in 1858–1859) and partially realized in the hortus ludi of its Garden of Pleasure. Secondly, we move from the outdoor room of the Garden of Pleasure to the Morrisian interior proper, where Romance is engendered in generously layered hierarchies of surface, scaled to simplicity or splendour.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Architecture
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	978 1 032 07854 0
Last Modified:	25 Aug 2026 10:18
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/152942

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