Port Sunlight: A Record of Its Artistic & Pictorial Aspect
B. T. Batsford. First Edition. TEMPORARILY REDUCED BY 70%. WAS $545. NOW $95.50. A Fine copy of this SCARCE work, in a Near Fine dust jacket with some tearing/chipping to the spine ends, panel corners, and to the rear panel's bottom edge. The front free endpaper's recto shows a slight mark to the top edge as well as to its leading egge Port Sunlight is a small town in England's northwest, being a model village built as a community for workers employed at the adjacent Lever soapworks at Merseyside. The homes were built after designs by notable architects and were influenced by William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement and the village took its name from the popular Lever cleaner named 'Sunlight', and a Lever Brothers "compliments of" card is loosely laid in. In our experience, copies in the dust jacket are exceedingly difficult to find.
Port Sunlight is arguably the finest surviving example of early urban planning in the UK, and has remained largely intact since its foundation by William Hesketh Lever in 1888. The village is home to more than 900 Grade II listed buildings set in 130 acres of parkland and gardens.
More than 30 different architects created the buildings, monuments and memorials we still see today, and nearly every period of British architecture is represented through revival design. The village is a good example of the aesthetic movement, which emphasised visual and sensual qualities of art and design, and the Arts and Crafts Movement, with its emphasis on traditional craftsmanship.
Lever built Port Sunlight to house the workers at his soap factory, Lever Brothers, which eventually became the global giant, Unilever. The village represents one man’s vision to provide industrial workers with decent, sanitary housing in a considered architectural and picturesque form.
However, rather than a philanthropic venture, Lever claimed it was all part of a business model he termed ‘prosperity-sharing’. Rather than sharing the profits of the company directly with his employees, Lever provided them with decent and affordable houses, amenities and welfare provisions that made their lives secure and comfortable and enabled them to flourish as people. It was also intended to inspire loyalty and commitment. Item #3665
Price: $545.00