Mission Style

Mission style, type of furniture popular in the United States during the turn of the 20th century. The furniture, distinguished by its simplicity of materials and design, arose out of the Arts and Crafts-inspired movement led in the United States by Gustav Stickley. Makers of this type of furniture shared a belief in the social virtues of good design and handcraftmanship.

The furniture, typically made of oak with a stain finish, had a rectilinear design and exposed carpentry. There was little or no decoration, though the joinery was sometimes given a darker stain to emphasize the expert construction. Fittings were made of copper or iron, and coverings were of leather, canvas, or plain cloth. Mission craftsmen also made stained-glass chandeliers, beaten copper candleholders, and hand-turned earthenware.

The first pieces to be called Mission furniture were probably made in New York City in the 1890s and were inspired by the wood furniture of Spanish missions in California. However, the major impetus for the style was the British Arts and Crafts movement. Stickley, who had been greatly influenced by the aesthetics of William Morris and John Ruskin, began publishing The Craftsman, a magazine that became the primary voice of the craftsman’s movement, in 1901. Through the magazine Stickley expressed the importance of humane design in the industrial age. Good furniture design, according to Stickley, was utilitarian and organic, using simple materials and construction to underscore the values of the integrity of labour and man’s relation to nature.

The preeminent makers of Mission furniture were Stickley’s Craftsman Workshops and the Roycroft Community, both located in New York. The style was particularly popular out west and had a pronounced influence on the bungalow houses built by California architects Charles and Henry Greene. Its influence can also be seen in the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright.