Jim -
The more I learn about what was going on in Britain circa 1905, the more it is clear to me that Crane raised issues in the mid-1920's that had been debated for a couple of decades. He had his own twist on things, but basically he was continuing an argument about design principles that first arose with the emergence of what we now call strategic architecture. The 1902 Croome (?) essay from The Field gives a flavor of that earlier debate.
Bob