DESIGN for LIFE

In 1882, Oscar Wilde toured America giving one of three lectures at each stop: The English Renaissance, The Decorative Arts, and The House Beautiful. No transcript of the latter lecture, first given in Chicago on 11 March, exists but, by all accounts, it was the soon-to-be-notorious author’s most effective piece; witty, learned and above all practical.

Wilde concerned himself with instructing his American audiences on matters of taste – redbrick tile floors were preferred, furniture should be in the Queen Anne style, ornamentation must be hand carved, and “keynotes of colour” were required if one was to create symphonies in the home. The writer was astutely tapping into a newfound interest in such matters, as the 1880s was perhaps the first decade in which the middle classes were encouraged to take initiative in designing the look and feel of their own homes.

also quoted liberally from William Morris, one of the most profound thinkers and creative designers associated with the Arts & Crafts movement. In the same year that Wilde was preaching to American homeowners, Morris published , a collection of essays based upon five lectures that the Walthamstow-born, contains Morris’s famous maxim on interior design: “If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”