Both architect and designer, M.H. Baillie Scott came into the field of design after deciding not to pursue his family's business of agriculture. A member of the "English 'Free School'" which, according to www.greatbuildings.com, later influenced the simple, functional ideals of the Chicago School and Frank Lloyd Wright, Baillie Scott's designs focused on a "truth to material and precise craftsmanship" that linked him to William Morris's philosophy that beautiful objects are those which are conceived of and crafted carefully and express their own functionality in their design.
Baillie Scott's architectural endeavors often served as vessels for his interior decorative items, creating a homogenous space that worked harmoniously; Morris's ideals of an artist's involvement in the creation of an object beginning at its inception. David Cody describes Morris & Co's exact philosophy as "the workman-artist would conceive of, design, and actually bring his own work into being, presiding over it from first to last." Baillie Scott appeared to have brought this dictum to a new level, envisioning the buildings he created as a unit: not only did he design their structure, but he filled them originally designed objects which created a unified atmosphere, involving himself in their creation "from first to last."
Curtis writes in his Modern Architecture After 1900 that Baillie Scott's intentions in his architecture were to "open up the interior space . . . [to] attempt [to] express a way of life" (89). The idea of architecture being conceived as an object constructed for a particular way of life could explain Baillie Scott's, and other architects/designers such as Mackintosh's, involvement in the ornamentation and interior design of the buildings that they conceived. Curtis calls this "a unified aesthetic conception . . . a total work of art" (90).
Baillie Scott clung to his original style even when the Modernist movement of the early 1900s became more popular, something for which he was criticized. Although vastly different from the furniture featured in the 1851 exhibition popularized in the early years of the century, Baillie Scott's works adhere to a specific style pre-dating the modern movement.
Questions
1. Compare Baillie Scott's upright piano (in oak and ivory) to the designs of the furniture in the gallery "Furniture that Gave Victorian Style a Bad Name." Specifically, how does the design of Baillie Scott's piano differ from some of the ideals that seem to be embodied in the illustrations of the Exhibition's furniture? What are the differences in surface, detail, and scale? What similarities do you see?
2. Another of Baillie Scott's pianos, the upright in ivory and ebonized wood, integrates a relief pattern as well as marquetry. How does this sort of ornamentation differ from the sorts used in the Exhibition illustrations? Consider the materials used -- does this form of decoration involve any sort of Ruskinian principles? What do the materials used imply about the craftsmanship and/or quality of this work?
3. Look at the illustration of a sofa in the "Furniture that Gave Victorian Style a Bad Name" gallery. Does this directly contradict Baillie Scott's ideal of an object's "exquisite appropriateness to its position and use"? Why does it seem inappropriate, if this is true? Does it have any virtues which later artists may have overlooked?
4. Baillie Scott's background involves initial schooling in agriculture (specifically sheep farms). Christopher Dresser, too, had an interest in the land: he was a botanist. What links could there be between the sort of design advocated by these artists and nature? How could their knowledge and/or observation of natural elements have led to their ideals of design? Could this have been one of the things that drew them to Ruskin's ideology?
5. With regards to Baillie Scott's dog grate, what comments would Pugin have made? What would Ruskin have said about it?
6. Baillie Scott was said to have influenced Frank Lloyd Wright and the Chicago School. What, specifically, could he have lent them in terms of inspiration and innovative design? How does he embody the ideals of the arts and crafts movement in a different way -- if any -- than others within the movement? What would you say are the strongest messages being sent by the works of artists like Baillie Scott and Morris, specifically by how their works differ from their predecessors? Why did these objects come to represent modernity, and the needs of modern citizens?
7. Morris was disillusioned by the fact that the objects he created fell into the hands and houses of the upper class he despised. How could being an architect as well as a designer, as Baillie Scott was, have been a reaction against this? Does an architect have more control over the consumers of his product by creating the building with a particular lifestyle in mind?
Works Cited
"Baillie-Scott." Great Buildings Online. November 2004.
The Victorian Web.
Curtis, William J.R. Modern Architecture Since 1900. New York: Phaidon Press, 1996.
Last modified 23 November 2004