Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Widely acknowledged as Britain's leading architectural historian, Sir Howard Colvin has been responsible for fundamental research that has helped to bring about a renaissance in English architectural history in the second half of the twentieth century. In this volume, Colvin gathers eighteen new and revised essays written throughout his distinguished career.
The collection includes five essays never before published, including one which looks afresh at the architectural apparatus of sixteenth-century state entries and another that explores the use of caryatids and other formalized human figures in English architecture from Tudor times onwards. The author also offers reprinted essays, revised where necessary, on such topics as the idea of a Court Style in medieval English architecture, the south front of Wilton House, and the infiltration of the Georgian Office of Works by an architectural pressure group led by Lord Burlington. Several essays reflect the author's long-standing interest in the problem of the persistence of Gothic architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and its revival in the eighteenth, and another treats his equally long-standing interest in the history of the architectural profession. The author concludes with his recollections of what can now be seen as a golden age of English architectural research in the years following the Second World War.
Published for the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 303) and index.
Table of Contents
Royal gardens in medieval England --Was there a 'court style' in medieval English architecture? --Church building in Devon in the sixteenth century --Recycling the monasteries: demolition and reuse by the Tudor government, 1536-47 --Pompous entries and English architecture --Herms, terms and Caryatids in English architecture --The south front of Wilton House --Thorpe Hall and its architect --Chesterton House, Warwickshire --Robert Hooke and Ramsbury Manor --The rebuilding of the Church of St Mary Aldermary after the great fire of London --John Aubrey's Chronologia architectonica --Gothic survival and Gothic revival --The grand bridge in Blenheim Park (with Alistair Rowan) --Lord Burlington and the office of works --Architect and client in Georgian England --Lease or demolish? The problem of the redundant country house in Georgian England --Writing A biographical dictionary of British architects --The author's principal writings on architectural history.