Biography for Philip Webb

Childhood

As an architect, Philip Webb is best known for his unconventional country houses which were unpretentious and informal. He was a pioneering figure in the English domestic revival movement. Although influenced by medieval styles and the Gothic revival movement championed by John Ruskin, his highly original, yet practical designs incorporated the use of contrasting materials such as white interior walls and bare brickwork. This practical approach, material usage and exposure of structural elements is similar to the concepts embraced by 20th-century Functionalism.
Webb was a close friend of Pre-Raphaelite designer William Morris. They were among the founders of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company in 1851 which specialised in stained glass, carving, furniture, wallpaper, carpets and tapestries. Webb and Morris also founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. Webb’s first commission was for Morris’ eclectic country house and gathering place for the Pre-Raphaelites, the Red House (1859).
For the company, Webb designed household furnishings and decorative accessories in metal, glass, wood and embroidery. He is particularly famous for his table glassware, stained glass, jewelry and his rustic adaptations of Stuart period furniture.Webb was the only Pre-Raphaelite to design a church, St. Martin’s Church, Brampton (1878). The church includes a set of stained glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones and executed in the company’s studios.Philip Webb, along with Thomas Jackson, designed simple undecorative tableware James Powell & Sons. Ruskin’s more purist views, however, were that the only true glass was that made by the Venetians in the Renaissance, in which the ductility of the molten glass and transparency were all. These beliefs were adopted in the early 1860s by retailers and designers like William Morris and his friend Philip Webb (1831-1915), although their interests also extended to German ‘forest glass’ and, briefly in 1859-60 to enamelled glass. With the glass makers James Powell & Sons of Whitefriars, and the architect -designer Thomas G Jackson (1835-1924), these Ruskin acolytes were responsible for the design and making of some of the most unexpectedly restrained and simple blown and handworked tableware.