History + Handicrafts

The current project I am working on is a brief about the Lethaby building at our university. I have since discovered the history of our college which began as the "LCC (London County) Central School of Arts & Crafts" in 1896. It was founded during the Arts & Crafts movement, as a counter to the industrial revolution and mass production. It was created in an effort to reintroduce through education traditional "crafts" or "trades" and keep them alive. The Lethaby building is a part of the purpose-built site for the University which was completed in 1907.

Our University even has a museum on site! The woman there, Judy, showed us a whole collection of historical items, like William Lethaby's (the architect and first principal of the central school) original watercolour of the building plan.

Hussain + I took photos (and he took some videos) of our exploration of the building and museum bits. If you are curious, you can see them here.

Anyway, after researching the initial principles of the University, which I found to be:

• the marriage of traditional crafts + modern technology
• learning the links between crafts + using them in unison
• learning from history
• education for all (including FREE tuition for individuals with the talent)
• craftsmanship
• loving your work/enjoying what you do/putting your heart into your work
• industry connection

The image below is taken from Charles Voysey, which was the motto for the Society of Designers, and the key to understanding the Arts & Crafts movement. 'Head' for creativity and imagination, 'Hand' for skill and craft, 'Heart' for honesty and for love.

I realized that the purpose for most current students at CSM seemed to be drastically different from the early years.

What I wanted to do for this assignment was to remind students the reason they SHOULD be there. Thus I decided to create a serious of commemorative quotes by Mr. Lethaby and other tutors who were there when the University was created. I also wanted to do some handcrafted design piece in spirit of the arts + crafts movement. So I decided to make some tiles!

It has been a struggle and many failed attempts to fulfill this idea. Here is some documentation.