Download or read book Reassessing Nikolaus Pevsner written by Peter Draper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nikolaus Pevsner was one of the most important and influential art historians of the twentieth century. He opened up new areas of enquiry in the history of art, revolutionising architectural studies in England and playing a key role in establishing the discipline of design history. Through his lectures and broadcasts, as well as the remarkable volumes in The Buildings of England series which made him a household name, he did much to encourage greater interest in, and understanding of, art and architecture among a wide public. This wide-ranging collection of essays, based on papers delivered at the conference held at Birkbeck in celebration of the centenary of Pevsner's birth, offers the first sustained critical assessment of Pevsner's achievements. With contributions by leading international scholars, the volume brings together a wealth of new material on Pevsner and his intellectual background, both in Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s and in England, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s.

Download or read book Nikolaus Pevsner written by Susie Harries and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-08-18 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born Nikolai Pewsner into a Russian-Jewish family in Leipzig in 1902, Nikolaus Pevsner was a dedicated scholar who pursued a promising career as an academic in Dresden and Göttingen. When, in 1933 Jews were no longer permitted to teach in German universities, he lost his job and looked for employment in England. Here, over a long and amazingly industrious career, he made himself an authority on the exploration and enjoyment of English art and architecture, so much so that his magisterial county-by-county series of 46 books on The Buildings of England (first published 1951 - 74) is usually referred to simply as 'Pevsner'. As a critic, academic and champion of Modernism, Pevsner became a central figure in the architectural consensus that accompanied post-war reconstruction; as a 'general practitioner' of architectural history, he covered an astonishing range, from Gothic cathedrals and Georgian coffee houses to the Festival of Britain and Brutalist tower blocks. Susie Harries explores the truth about Nikolaus Pevsner's reported sympathies with elements of Nazi ideology, his internment in England as an enemy alien and his sometimes painful assimilation into his country of exile. His Heftchen - secret diaries he kept from the age of 14 for another sixty years - reveal hidden aspirations and anxieties, as do his numerous letters (he wrote to his wife, Lola, every day that they were apart).Harries is the first biographer to have read Pevsner's private papers and, through them, to have seen into the workings of his mind.Her definitive biography is not only rich in context and far-ranging, but is also brought to life by quotations from Pevsner himself. He was born a Jew but converted to Lutheranism; trained in the rigour of German scholarship, he became an Everyman in his copious commissions, publications, broadcasts and lectures on art, architecture, design, education, town planning, social housing, conservation, Mannerism, the Bauhaus, the Victorians, Zeitgeist, Englishness and how a nation's character may, or must, be reflected in its art. His life - as an outsider yet an insider at the heart of English art history - illuminates both the predicament and the prowess of the continental émigrés who did so much to shape British culture after 1945.

Download or read book Reassessing Nikolaus Pevsner written by Peter Draper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nikolaus Pevsner was one of the most important and influential art historians of the twentieth century. He opened up new areas of enquiry in the history of art, revolutionising architectural studies in England and playing a key role in establishing the discipline of design history. Through his lectures and broadcasts, as well as the remarkable volumes in The Buildings of England series which made him a household name, he did much to encourage greater interest in, and understanding of, art and architecture among a wide public. This wide-ranging collection of essays, based on papers delivered at the conference held at Birkbeck in celebration of the centenary of Pevsner's birth, offers the first sustained critical assessment of Pevsner's achievements. With contributions by leading international scholars, the volume brings together a wealth of new material on Pevsner and his intellectual background, both in Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s and in England, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s.

Download or read book Visual Planning and the Picturesque written by Nikolaus Pevsner and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2010 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A previously unpublished work by Nikolaus Pevsner, much of which was published as journal articles in the Architectural Review in the 1940s and 1950s during Pevsner's term as editor.

Download or read book Shaping the Surface written by Stephen Kite and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-17 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaping the Surface explores the history of modern British architecture through the lens of surface, materiality and decoration. Picking up on a trait that art historian Nikolaus Pevsner first identified as a 'national mania for beautiful surface quality', this book makes a new contribution to architectural history and visual culture in its detailed examination of the surfaces of British architecture from the middle of the 19th century up to the turn of the 21st century. Tracing this continuing sensibility to surface all the way through to the modern era, it explores how and why surface and materiality have featured so heavily in recent architectural tradition, examining the history of British architecture through a selection of key cultural moments and movements from Romanticism and the Arts and Crafts, to Brutalism, High-Tech, Post-Modernism, Neo-Vernacular, and the New Materiality. Embedded within the narrative is the question of whether such national characters can exist in architecture at all – and indeed the extent to which it is possible to identify a British architectural consciousness in an architectural tradition characterised by its continuous importation of theories, ideas, materials and people from around the globe. Shaping the Surface provides a deep critique and meditation on the importance of surface and materiality for architects, designers, and historians everywhere - in Britain and beyond - while it also serves as a thematic introduction to modern British architectural history, with in-depth readings of the works of many key British architects, artists, and critics from Ruskin and William Morris to Alison and Peter Smithson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Rogers and Caruso St John.

Download or read book The Mental Life of the Architectural Historian written by Gevork Hartoonian and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-11 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting with the question concerning the discursive formation of architectural history, the chapters compiled in this book attempt to re-read the historiography of early modern architecture from the point of view of the theoretical work produced since the post-war era. Central to the objectives of the argument are the ways in which, firstly, architectural history differs from the traditions of art history, and, secondly, that the historical narrative works its autonomy through theoretical representation, the discursive flow of which is interrupted by the historian’s urge to support arguments with references to buildings, texts, drawings, and historical events. The historians discussed in this volume are those regularly addressed by most critics revisiting modern architectural history. Individual chapters are dedicated to N. Pevsner, H. R. Hitchcock, and S. Giedion, an economy of selection that is formative for a critical understanding of the canon established by these historians. Themes such as periodization, autonomy, and time are discussed, and the coda of the final chapter expands on the scope of “critical historiography” popularised by Kenneth Frampton and Manfredo Tafuri.

Download or read book Architecture Travellers and Writers written by Anne Hultzsch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the way in which buildings are looked at, and made sense of, change over the course of time? How can we find out about this? By looking at a selection of travel writings spanning four centuries, Anne Hultzsch suggests that it is language, the description of architecture, which offers answers to such questions. The words authors use to transcribe what they see for the reader to re-imagine offer glimpses at modes of perception specific to one moment, place and person. Hultzsch constructs an intriguing patchwork of local and often fragmentary narratives discussing texts as diverse as the 17th-century diary of John Evelyn, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and an 1855 art guide by Swiss art historian Jacob Burckhardt. Further authors considered include 17th-century collector John Bargrave, 18th-century novelist Tobias Smollett, poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, critic John Ruskin as well as the 20th-century architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner. Anne Hultzsch teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Download or read book Robert Willis 1800 1875 and the Foundation of Architectural History written by Alexandrina Buchanan and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2013 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-scale biography of Robert Willis, the "founding father" of architectural history.

Download or read book Time s Anvil written by Richard Morris and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A personal and lyrical rediscovery of the history of England through archaeology and the imagination. History thrives on stories. TIME'S ANVIL explores archaeology's influence on what such stories say, how they are told, who tells them and how we listen. In a dazzlingly wide-ranging exploration, Richard Morris casts fresh light on three quarters of a million years of history in the place we now think of as England. Drawing upon genres that are usually pursued in isolation - like biography, poetry, or physics - he finds potent links between things we might imagine to be unrelated. His subjects range from humanity's roots to the destruction of the wildwood, from the first farmers to industrialization, and from Tudor drama to 20th-century conflict. Each topic sits at a different point along the continuum between epoch and the fleeting moment. In part, this is a history of archaeology; in part, too, it is a personal account of the author's history in archaeology. But mainly it is about how the past is read, and about what we bring to the reading as well as what we find. The result is a book that defies categorisation, but one which will by turns surprise, enthrall and provoke anyone who cares for England, who we are and where we have come from. TIME'S ANVIL was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2013.

Download or read book Getty Research Journal No 2 written by Thomas W. Gaehtgens and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2010-04-05 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second volume in the annual publication that showcases the work of the Getty Research Institute. This annual publication showcases work by scholars and staff associated with the Getty Research Institute and the other programs of the prestigious J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Journal offers peer reviewed essays that focus on an object or aspect of the Getty's extensive archival, rare book, and artistic holdings or that relate to the annual research themes of the Research Institute and the Getty Villa. It also presents a selection of short, dynamic pieces about new acquisitions, scholarly activities, and ongoing projects at the Getty.

Download or read book Shaping the City to Come written by Deborah Lewittes and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study reassesses modern architecture and town planning in mid-twentieth-century England, highlighting ideas and debates that were in circulation as modernist ideals gradually took root. The book reveals an architectural culture that was serious, active, and visionary, with impact that extended into the postwar years. Through close studies of specific works and writings, the author acknowledges the importance of the international context of modern architecture as it intersected with the variety of narratives that defined English modernism, such as national identity, the New Empiricism, and the picturesque, taking into account the large community of émigré architects who settled in England with the approach of World War II, as well as a more general dissemination of international style forms and theories from continental Europe. The book places familiar figures such as Berthold Lubetkin and Ernö Goldfinger, as well as projects such as Tecton’s Penguin Pool and the Festival of Britain’s “Live Architecture” Exhibition, in new light, presenting a rich picture of the modern architectural climate in England. The study draws attention to the debates, proposals, and processes that fed into the development of modernist, urban-minded, and forward-looking architectural ideals.

Download or read book Pevsner written by Stephen Games and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-06-02 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Birkbeck written by Joanna Bourke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birkbeck traces the 200-year history of Birkbeck, University of London from its founding at a time when social elites deplored the notion of educated working people to the present day. Joanna Bourke writes a lively history of the institution, and how it contributed to the shaping of modern British higher education. Two hundred years ago, Birkbeck was founded as the London Mechanics' Institution (LMI). When it was established in 1823, one third of all men and half of all women were unable to read or write. British elites were vehemently hostile to educating working people. The country was in political turmoil and it was feared that education would destroy society. This was the context in which the LMI was established. From its foundation, it was unique. Birkbeck traces its history from 1823 to the present, with Joanna Bourke using the history of Birkbeck to reflect on life and culture in London over the past two centuries. What does it mean to be educated? Why have Birkbeck's students been prepared to give up so much in order to study for a higher degree? How does education help us become fully human and self-fulfilled by learning how to use all our faculties - knowledge, imagination, sympathy? The story of Birkbeck contains some blood, oceans of scholarly sweat, and not a few tears. But it is also a story of laughter, intellectual excitement, scholarly eccentricity, collective as well as personal ambition, and, most of all, the quirky passions and personalities that make up the Birkbeck community. It is a story of a unique university but also of higher education of Britain. It shows how knowledge can empower people to better themselves and improve the world.

Download or read book Summerson and Hitchcock written by Frank E. Salmon and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

Download or read book The Baroque in Architectural Culture 1880 1980 written by Andrew Leach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his landmark volume Space, Time and Architecture, Sigfried Giedion paired images of two iconic spirals: Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International and Borromini’s dome for Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza. The values shared between the baroque age and the modern were thus encapsulated on a single page spread. As Giedion put it, writing of Sant’Ivo, Borromini accomplished 'the movement of the whole pattern [...] from the ground to the lantern, without entirely ending even there.' And yet he merely 'groped' towards that which could 'be completely effected' in modern architecture-achieving 'the transition between inner and outer space.' The intellectual debt of modern architecture to modernist historians who were ostensibly preoccupied with the art and architecture of earlier epochs is now widely acknowledged. This volume extends this work by contributing to the dual projects of the intellectual history of modern architecture and the history of architectural historiography. It considers the varied ways that historians of art and architecture have historicized modern architecture through its interaction with the baroque: a term of contested historical and conceptual significance that has often seemed to shadow a greater contest over the historicity of modernism. Presenting research by an international community of scholars, this book explores through a series of cross sections the traffic of ideas between practice and history that has shaped modern architecture and the academic discipline of architectural history across the long twentieth century. The editors use the historiography of the baroque as a lens through which to follow the path of modern ideas that draw authority from history. In doing so, the volume defines a role for the baroque in the history of architectural historiography and in the history of modern architectural culture.

Download or read book Reading Penguin written by George Donaldson and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded by Allen Lane in 1935, Penguin Books soon became the most read publisher in the United Kingdom and was synonymous with the British paperback. Making high quality reading cheaply available to millions, Penguin helped democratise reading. In so doing, Penguin played an important part in the cultural and intellectual life of the English speaking world. For this book, which has its origins in the successful international conference held at Bristol University in 2010 to mark 75 years of Penguin Books, recognised scholars from different fields examine various aspects of Penguin’s significance and achievement. David Cannadine and Simon Eliot offer wide historical perspectives of Penguin’s place and impact. Other scholars, including Alistair McCleery, Kimberley Reynolds, Andrew Sanders, Claire Squires, Susie Harries, Andrew Nash, Tom Boll and William John Lyons examine more particularised subjects. These range from the breaking of the Lady Chatterley ban to the visions of the future contained in Puffin Books; from Penguin Classics to the scholarly and commercial interests in publishers’ anniversaries; from the art and architectural histories of Nikolaus Pevsner to the art and design of Penguin covers; and from the translation of poetry to the transcription of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Together the essays depict much of what it was that made Penguin the most important British publishing house of the twentieth century.

Download or read book Artwriting Nation and Cosmopolitanism in Britain written by MarkA. Cheetham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing in favour of renewed critical attention to the 'nation' as a category in art history, this study examines the intertwining of art theory, national identity and art production in Britain from the early eighteenth century to the present day. The book provides the first sustained account of artwriting in the British context over the full extent of its development and includes new analyses of such central figures as Hogarth, Reynolds, Gilpin, Ruskin, Roger Fry, Herbert Read, Art & Language, Peter Fuller and Rasheed Araeen. Mark A. Cheetham also explores how the 'Englishing' of art theory-which came about despite the longstanding occlusion of the intellectual and theoretical in British culture-did not take place or have effects exclusively in Britain. Theory has always travelled with art and vice versa. Using the frequently resurgent discourse of cosmopolitanism as a frame for his discourse, Cheetham asks whether English traditions of artwriting have been judged inappropriately according to imported criteria of what theory is and does. This book demonstrates that artwriting in the English tradition has not been sufficiently studied, and that 'English Art Theory' is not an oxymoron. Such concerns resonate today beyond academe and the art world in the many heated discussions of resurgent Englishness.