Drawing

This fireplace design was created for the Bon Marché department store in Brixton, London probably between 1913 and 1920. It demonstrates a typically conservative style of the period, favoured by the middle classes and priced at mid-range. Its highly decorative motifs seem outdated when placed in the historical context of early Modernism, when designers sought to reject history and applied ornament but rather to mirror cultural changes like industrialisation in daily life. This design reflects the popular British taste for furniture which had little to do with the cultural avant garde.