ABSTRACT
The foundations for an architecture of care are to be found in a range of thinkers and ideas preceding the Arts and Crafts Movement. This chapter looks at the inherent contradictions in the rise of social science discourse concerned with the impact of rapid urbanisation as found exemplified in Frederick Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England. The writing and impact of Ruskin on the ambition to change the world through architecture through a reverence to nature is then engaged with. Similarly, the effect of emergent theories of evolution had on the idea of buildings as instruments of positive change on inhabitants is pointed to. The writing of Ruskin, in particular The Ethics of the Dust, is used as a segue to animism potentially underlying architecturally constructed things, which in turn briefly notes the emergence of an interest in animism in contemporary theory. Ruskin is useful again to introduce a deep concern for the environment and an emergent ethos of sustainability and anti-urbanism. A final part of the chapter reiterates the architectural precepts of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
