Tessa Wild: Phillip Webb and Standen (In-Person Registration)

‘I never begin to be satisfied until my work looks commonplace’ - Philip Webb and Standen, West Sussex

Philip Webb was one of England’s most influential domestic architects, a founding partner and mainstay of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. (later Morris & Co.), and co-founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. He was widely venerated by a coterie of younger architects and craftsmen who recognised him as the father of Arts and Crafts architecture. This talk will explore Webb’s work at Standen (1891-94), for James and Margaret Beale, wealthy, middle-class Unitarians, who wanted a ‘house in the country’ for weekends, holidays and their eventual retirement. It was to prove to be an important and highly collaborative commission with both architect and client in accord and survives, largely unaltered, as one of Webb’s finest houses.

Tessa Wild is the former curator of Red House at Bexleyheath, and Standen in West Sussex, two important houses which bookend Philip Webb’s career. She has published widely, including William Morris and his Palace of Art, (Philip Wilson, 2018), is co-author of Standen Philip Webb, Morris & Co. and the Creation of an Arts and Crafts Home, (Yale, 2025), and has written about Philip Webb’s country houses for a forthcoming book to be published to coincide with exhibitions on Webb at the Bard Graduate Centre, NYC, and the V&A. She is Director of the Attingham Trust Summer School, curatorial adviser to a private country house in the West Country and a trustee of Emery Walker’s House, London.

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