Victorian Design

Queen Victoria was crowned in 1837. It was a period when the Industrial Revolution was coming to an end and it was the early years of the Arts and Crafts movement. It is known that until Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the powerful engines of the new economy like the power lathes, printed works and textile mills, remade England as the "workshop of the world". The Victorian era saw a great change in the middle class home as goods became more available for the general population.

Since there were mass-produced products, catalogs started being printed and arriving in the hands of the consumers. Because of all this, on May 1st in 1840 the first postage stamp was introduced. It was called "the penny black" as it used to cost one penny including a portrait of the Queen Victoria.

The Victorian style was eclectic or cluttered. Homes were filled with big furniture and excessive amounts of ornaments. This style later influenced Art Nouveau but in a less stylised manner. Victorian design was also influenced from the gothic and rococo, and the industrial revolution meant that new techniques and materials were available.

Victorian style

Art Nouveau style

In the mean time during the Victorian era, in America there were also the inventions of new ideas. The "Sholes & Glidden Type Writer" was invented in 1868 by the gunmakers E. Remington & Sons in New York. It was not a great success, not more than 5,000 were sold, but it brought mechanisation to time consuming office work.

Another first in America was the roller coaster. The roller coaster was already invented in Paris in 1804 and it was called the "Russian Mountains", but in America it arrived in 1884 designed and built specifically as an amusement ride at Coney Island, New York. This roller coaster was 600 foot long, from point-to-point (not a continuous loop) and worked only with the aid of gravity.

The fist typewriter

The first American roller coaster

With these inventions the economy spawned a growing gulf between the rich and the poor, as design became a flashpoint for debate. This is where the London architect and designer William Morris stepped in. He wanted to turn back the clock to when artisans could be proud of their hand-tooled products and not just cogs in a machine. Morris himself stated that "Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilisation". About William Morris it was discussed better in the Arts and Crafts Movement previously.

Whatever these clashes had brought with them, in her sixty four year reign Queen Victoria presided over and gave her name to one of the most transformative periods in the design history.

References:

Anon, 2000. Victorian Homes. [image online] Available at: http://www.victorianbazaar.com/homes.html [Accessed 26th October 2013]

Ana Duovska, n.d. 22Classy Art Nouveau Interior Design Ideas. [image online] Available at: http://www.architectureartdesigns.com/22-classy-art-nouveau-interior-design-ideas/ [Accessed 26th October 2013]

Randy Alfred, 2009. Queen Victoria Gets Stamped. [image online] Available at: http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/05/dayintech_0506/ [Accessed 25th October 2013]

Darryl Rehr, n.d. The First Typewriter. [online] Available at: http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/firsttw.html [Accessed 25th October 2013]

Tony Long, 2008. A Technology With Plenty Ups and Downs. [online] Available at: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0616 [Accessed 25th October 2013]

Ferebee, A., Byles, J. 2011. A History Of Design From Victorian Era To The Present. Second Edition. New York: Litton Educational Publishing.