"Sono felice di parlarti di un architetto, Mr Philip Webb"

So John Ruskin, in October 1867 when introducing Philip S. Webb to William Hale White, the Victorian writer and novelist, had the opportunity to praise the honest, solid and uncommon figure of the youngest designer. The possibility of reading the ruskinian heritage through Webb's work in the fields of interior design and furnishing systems open up new reflections and allows us to bring the beginning of modern design back into the conservative sensibility of the second half of the nineteenth century, which also consolidates the close collaboration with William Morris. The intervention aims to investigate Webb's contribution to design culture and his productions in the fields of furniture products and artistic industries. The continuous dialogue between tradition and innovation changed in the course of his professional life, between Oxford and London. The Red House, the first major architectural synthesis, has shown the traces of this progressive vision of the future. From the lesson of Ruskin, Webb would have taken on the attention to detail even before the whole, a rare sensitivity for the design and use of color, the full knowledge of materials, from stone, brick, wood, glass.