Edward Schroeder Prior

Edward Schroeder Prior RA (1852–1932) was an architect, instrumental in establishing the arts and crafts movement. He was one of the foremost theorists of the second generation of the movement, writing extensively on architecture, art, craftsmanship and the building process and subsequently influencing the training of many architects.

He was a major contributor to the development of the Art Workers Guild and other organisations that lay at the heart of the movement's attempts to bring art, craftsmanship and architecture closer together. His scholarly work, particularly A History of Gothic Art in England (1900), achieved international acclaim. He became one of the leading architectural educationalists of his generation. As Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge University he established the School of Architectural Studies.

Initially his buildings show the influence of his mentor Norman Shaw and Philip Webb, but Prior experimented with materials, massing and volume from the start of his independent practice. He developed a style that was intensely individual and a practical philosophy of construction that was perhaps nearer to Ruskin's ideal of the "builder designer" than that of any other arts and crafts architect.

The buildings of his maturity, such as The Barn, Exmouth, and Home Place, Kelling are amongst the most original of the period. In St Andrew's Church, Roker, he produced his masterpiece, a church that is now recognised as one of the best of the early 20th century.

Prior is the missing link of the Arts and Crafts Movement, as he was possibly the only practitioner who genuinely translated the artistic theories of Ruskin and Morris into architectural reality.

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