Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
(1819-1900) and William Morris (1834-96). Both were authors, artists, and
philosophers strongly influenced by Augustus Pugin (1812-52) who, as a
devout Christian and Catholic convert, advocated the strict design philosophy
of the Gothic Revival.
Ruskin published
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
and
The Stones of Venice
between 1849 and 1853 arguing that the beauty of architecture was a result of
sincere use of materials and honesty in construction. In this respect, Ruskin pro-
posed that the right Gothic style was the north Italian or Venetian Gothic, and
that the use of its polychromatic, multi-coloured masonry should be from the
natural hues of the bricks and stones, not paint or other superficial applications.
Though there were elements of opinion in the Gothic Revival that preferred
stone to brick, some proponents used brick, especially traditional handmade
bricks to exploit the artistic possibilities of gauged work, as at The Midland
Hotel, St. Pancras Station, London (1868-74) by Sir George Gilbert Scott
(1811-78).
The vision of the Arts and Craft movement was a return to the virtues of
freely expressed craftsmanship that were, it was thought, being destroyed by
mass-production and the economics of capitalism. One answer was found in the
so-called William and Mary and Queen Anne styles, popularised by architects
such as Philip Webb (1831-1915), William Eden Nesfield (1835-88), Richard
Norman Shaw (1831-1912), John James Stevenson (1831-1908), George
Fredrick Bodley (1827-1907), Edward Robert Robson (1836-1917) and Basil
Champneys (1842-1935). All studied the older English use of hand-made,
mainly red, bricks and based their designs on traditional methods, in attempts
to restore bricklaying as an art and prevent its demotion to craft status. They
did so by the prolific use of gauged work to wonderful aesthetic effect; though
by their direct control over the designs they unwittingly prevented their overall
desire from being fulfilled.
From the 1870s until the end of the nineteenth century the Queen Anne
heralded a golden age of gauged brick architectural detailing, particularly,
though not exclusively in London. Once again gauged work was exploited for
arches, aprons, niches, pilasters, volutes, pediments, oriels, vaults as well as
carved work on capitals, cartouches, consoles, date tablets, friezes and scrolls
etc; the craftsmen bricklayers relishing this long-awaited opportunity to display
their finest cherished craft skills. The architect Sir Ernest George (1839-1922)
used the Queen Anne style but added to the Flemish flavour of Norman
Shaw's work that appeared after 1874 (Girouard, 1977, 224). George became
the chief protagonist for a Flemish Renaissance style, also referred to as Pont-
Street Dutch, using Flemish gables along with gauged work detailings in the
Kensington and Knightsbridge areas of London.
Wonderfully ornate residences glorify our metropolis, such as the properties
of the Metropolitan Board of Works estate of Chelsea Embankment, and Tite
