Join us for our Summer Seminars 2026, “Craft, Design, and the Machine in Modern Life,” a six-part online lecture series!

Led by SMCF Executive Director Jonathan Clancy, Ph.D., this series explores a series of conversations spanning the Arts and Crafts movement to contemporary debates about technology and AI, where we invite you to explore what design means, what it can accomplish, and how the relationship between machines and culture continues to shape our lives. Together, these seminars use moments from history not as a comprehensive narrative, but as opportunities to learn, reflect, and engage in the important discussions that the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms seeks to foster.

Lectures may be purchased individually or as a complete series. Click here for the full course description.

Week #3: July 11, at 1:00 PM EDT via Zoom
Ornament and Crime or the Decorative Arts of Today

I have made the following discovery and I pass it on to the world: The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from utilitarian objects. I believed that with this discovery I was bringing joy to the world; it has not thanked me. – Adolph Loos, Ornament and Crime

I notice that a whole mass of objects which once bore the sense of truth have lost their content and are now no more than carcasses: I throw them out.

I will throw out everything from the past except that which is still of service to me. Some things are always of service: art. – Le Corbusier, The Decorative Art of Today

So easy has it become for us to focus on aesthetics as the defining feature of an object that we can miss the larger through lines that fundamentally connect objects that can look radically different. While Corbusier and Loos are not figures we often associate with craft, their texts reveal how–if read sensitively–they are the inheritors of an established tradition easily traced back through Batchelder and Wright to Morris and Ruskin. Framed in this manner European modernism and indeed the International Style are not radical ruptures of tradition but represent a refinement of many of ideas we have already covered. What is the role of the machine in the making of an object? To what degree is applied decoration consistent with simplicity and functionalism? What role should cost have in allowing a larger amount of people to surround themselves with better things? Perhaps most importantly, where does craft and design end and art begin?

This session will embrace the diversity of modernisms–from Irish interior designer Eileen Gray to Argentinian Alberto Churba to Cuban-Born Clara Porset–rather than focusing exclusively on Europe and the United States.

A La Carte
Member Price: $30 / session
Non-Member Price: $35 / session

Full Course
Member Price: All 6 sessions for $150 (one session free)
Non-Member Price: All 6 sessions for $210

Registration is required. Once registered and paid, you will receive an email prior to each session with a link to join.

Do you have a scheduling conflict for the live session? You can still enjoy the program. Register and we’ll send you the recording! All paid attendees will be emailed a private link to the session recording when it is available, typically 6-7 days after the live program.

Missed us? You can also register retroactively. If you register for a session that has passed, you’ll receive access to the recording when it is ready.

Haven’t tried a session yet? Each session is planned as a “stand-alone” lecture, so you can take them all or attend the topics that interest you most.