Re: Re: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
An interesting book on Victorian architecture:
Although more than a century has passed since the Victorian era ended, the great achievements of the period 1837-1901 are still grossly undervalued. Phrases such as ‘Victorian monstrosity’ are bandied about by many who ought to know better. Professor Curl’s robustly argued and magnificently illustrated book reveals much confident, colourful, rumbustiously eclectic architecture, and shows that the Victorians went further than anyone since Roman times to potty-train Urban Man.
He describes the palette of styles available to the Victorians (who were not afraid to experiment by mixing them); unprecedented building types; new materials; ecclesiastical buildings that, arguably, were superior to mediaeval exemplars; the responses of a vital society to contemporary challenges; and the built fabric set within the context of intellectual complexities of the age. Wearing his learning lightly, he presents his case with grace, gusto, and elegance, weaving a marvellous kaleidoscope of themes and impressions to bring the Victorian period to life in a work which will give readers much to ponder, savour, and enjoy.
This superb volume is brought alive by hundreds of top-quality illustrations, many of them historic photographs.
The pre-Victorian background, with the profound meanings of architectural style; the rise of Gothic; legislative changes; Secularism; Urbanisation; the Sublime; and Eclecticism.
The Palace of Westminster; Pugin; Ecclesiology; the Round-arched styles; Italian and other influences; Classicism; ‘Greek’ Thomson; Tudor, Jacobethan, the Egyptian Revival, and other styles.
Iron, glass, colour, and the new materials; ‘Go’, ‘Roguery’, and ‘muscularity’; the French connection; the progress of Gothic; church-building in the religious contexts; Ultramontanism; Anglo-Catholicism; and late-Victorian Gothic.
The Domestic Revival; ‘Queen Anne’; Free Eclecticism; Classicism and Baroque Revivals; domestic architecture, including philanthropic housing and model villages; Arts and Crafts; the Ruskin problem.
Traffic and communications; hygiene; disposal of the dead; theatres; pubs; hotels; commercial buildings; civic architecture; monuments and memorials.
Extensive references, Bibliography and comprehensive Index.
Emeritus Professor James Stevens Curl is a distinguished architectural historian with many books and articles to his credit, including The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape, The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West; Classical Architecture: An Introduction to its Vocabulary and Essentials, with a Select Glossary of Terms; Piety Proclaimed: An Introduction to Places of Worship in Victorian England; Georgian Architecture; The Victorian Celebration of Death; The Honourable The Irish Society and the Plantation of Ulster, 1608-2000; and The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry (1991 and 2002 – which won the coveted Sir Banister Fletcher Award for Best Book of the Year in 1992). He has acquired an enviable international reputation for thoroughness of research, impeccable scholarship, and lucidity of style, and has not been afraid to venture forth on paths unfrequented by those of a more timid disposition. Now, in his eighth decade, his acerbic wit, intellectual curiosity, and fluency of expression remain undiminished.
