DOI Heft:
No. 131 (February, 1904)
DOI Artikel:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: Arts and crafts at Dresden
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19881#0073
Arts and Crafts at Dresden
DESIGNED BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT
to an upholsterer to be covered with
some stuff that he may think best
suits it, or that affords him most profit.
Thus, although if occasion demands a
certain piece or set will be repeated
for different customers, everything
that leaves the house is unique in a
higher, aesthetic sense, inasmuch as
one mind has attended to all its
details, which have all been carried out
in one and the same spirit. Machinery
plays the part of the tool; it serves,
it does not rule over, the hand. For
the workmen engaged in the " Dresden
Werkstaetten," courses of lectures on
art, aesthetics, general culture (excluding
an historical treatment of former periods,
for he does not want to freight his
people with a ballast of past styles), are
arranged and they are supplied with
free opportunities of learning to draw.
The exhibition now open at Dresden
has been looked forward to for some
months with much expectation by many
people interested in arts and crafts, and
Of course, some of Mr. Schmidt's original
intentions have suffered modification by this
time. It would be impossible to do the
work done here without employing machinery
to some extent, nor is this actually attempted.
But strongly-pronounced main principles still
distinguish the establishment from the trade
factories; for instance, the artist must
supervise the construction of each object
from the moment he designs it until the
moment it is ready to be sent out of the
place; and every piece, in all its details,
must be entirely constructed upon the
premises. Thus the Werkstaetten will not
build a wardrobe, and then send out to
see what can be got in the way of brass
fittings or hinges and locks. All these things
are made along with the woodwork in the
Werkstaetten, even the keys; and no key
designed for one piece of furniture is made
to serve in duplicate for another, merely
for convenience sake. The artist who
designs a piece of furniture must design his
own new key. The artist who designs the
shape of a new arm-chair must also attend
to its covering ; the frame is not sent round
CABINET FOR BOOKS DESIGNED BY PROFESSOR OLBRICH
57
DESIGNED BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT
to an upholsterer to be covered with
some stuff that he may think best
suits it, or that affords him most profit.
Thus, although if occasion demands a
certain piece or set will be repeated
for different customers, everything
that leaves the house is unique in a
higher, aesthetic sense, inasmuch as
one mind has attended to all its
details, which have all been carried out
in one and the same spirit. Machinery
plays the part of the tool; it serves,
it does not rule over, the hand. For
the workmen engaged in the " Dresden
Werkstaetten," courses of lectures on
art, aesthetics, general culture (excluding
an historical treatment of former periods,
for he does not want to freight his
people with a ballast of past styles), are
arranged and they are supplied with
free opportunities of learning to draw.
The exhibition now open at Dresden
has been looked forward to for some
months with much expectation by many
people interested in arts and crafts, and
Of course, some of Mr. Schmidt's original
intentions have suffered modification by this
time. It would be impossible to do the
work done here without employing machinery
to some extent, nor is this actually attempted.
But strongly-pronounced main principles still
distinguish the establishment from the trade
factories; for instance, the artist must
supervise the construction of each object
from the moment he designs it until the
moment it is ready to be sent out of the
place; and every piece, in all its details,
must be entirely constructed upon the
premises. Thus the Werkstaetten will not
build a wardrobe, and then send out to
see what can be got in the way of brass
fittings or hinges and locks. All these things
are made along with the woodwork in the
Werkstaetten, even the keys; and no key
designed for one piece of furniture is made
to serve in duplicate for another, merely
for convenience sake. The artist who
designs a piece of furniture must design his
own new key. The artist who designs the
shape of a new arm-chair must also attend
to its covering ; the frame is not sent round
CABINET FOR BOOKS DESIGNED BY PROFESSOR OLBRICH
57