Basil Oliver and the End of the Arts and Crafts Movement

Little attention has yet been paid to the work of the East Anglian Arts and Crafts architect Basil Oliver (1882–1948) who is best known, if at all, for his bookThe Renaissance of the English Public House, published in 1947. Indeed he practised in the period, after the Great War, when the Arts and Crafts Movement is generally considered to have been a spent force, and so his obscurity comes as no surprise. We do not look to Oliver for insight into the fashionable styles of architecture such as emerging Modernism or even ‘art deco'. However, he is representative of a number of architects from this era who could be dismissed as traditionalists but who attempted to continue the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement in difficult times.