This article examines drawings associated with the sixteenth-century Italian architect, Galeazzo Alessi, focusing primarily on two important collections: the 112 folios held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan for the Milanese church of S. Maria presso S. Celso and the so-called Libro dei Misteri in Varallo's Biblioteca Civica, which contains 318 drawings for the pilgrimage site of the Sacro Monte there. By comparing Alessi's handwriting and drawing style across a variety of different letters and drawings present in archives in Genoa, Milan and Varallo, it is argued that all the drawings held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana folder and in the Libro dei Misteri must be the work of Alessi himself. The article then moves on to a discussion of Alessi's use of drawings in his practice and the developing role of the architect in the sixteenth century , which, it is argued, was increasingly defined by the ability of the architect to invent and to draw rather than to build.

Between 1859 and 1866, John Chessell Buckler (1793–1894) was accused, as architect to Lincoln Cathedral, of overseeing a process of ‘scraping’ the exterior stonework of the building during its restoration. The controversy involved the leading architectural bodies of the time, with professional journals and both national and local newspapers reporting on it over the course of half a decade. In his defence, Buckler published an angry book that, rather than exonerating the author, offended many members of the architectural profession, particularly George Gilbert Scott and the Ecclesiological Society. The dispute took place during a conservative shift in attitude to the repair of historic buildings. This essay attempts to clarify what Buckler did, what was at stake for his detractors, and what the ‘scraping’ scandal reveals about the political atmosphere of nineteenth-century British architectural culture.

Modern Movement metal-frame houses can be found across the United States of America from Connecticut to Hawaii. The most well known of these date from the late 1940s and 1950s, and they are often regarded as icons of twentieth-century architecture. On the whole they represented no cohesive effort or common goal, for they were usually one-off designs which neither drew from their context nor offered much towards the development of an industrial building process which the metal frame would suggest: in many ways they were ‘art objects’ and perhaps they should be appreciated for being just that. The few exceptions to this rule are to be found in Los Angeles, California.

In the Bank Stock Office at the Bank of England, built in 1792, Soane created an interior of a kind previously unknown in England and not found elsewhere except in a type of Byzantine church with which few English architects were familiar and which none would have regarded as an acceptable model for imitation. The building, demolished about 1925, may be described as follows (Pis ia, 2b and 9b): It was cruciform, consisting of a square central area or ‘crossing’, extending from which were two deep arms (north and south) and two shallow arms (east and west).

The later eighteenth century was a period when, as a result of increasingly eclectic and picturesque taste in the use of the classical language of architecture, young British architects were effectively compelled to spend some years studying in Italy if they wished to reach the forefront of their profession. The importance of this first-hand experience of Italy is attested by the physical and financial hardships many architectural students were prepared to endure in order to gain it, as well as by the fact that the pattern of travel continued unabated in the face of political hostilities in which Britain was periodically engaged within Europe. During the Seven Years War of 1756–63, for example, when the British found themselves at enmity with the French, the Austrians and, after 1762, with the Spanish, no fewer than eight British architects nevertheless travelled on the continent and did so relatively unimpeded. In fact there was at least one British architectural student present in Italy in every year between 1740 and 1797. This consistent pattern of travel was brought to an enforced end, however, when the Italian peninsula itself became the setting for overt military action after Napoleon had invaded Piedmont in April 1796. While five British architectural students managed to reach Italy during the brief peace which followed the conclusion of the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, one finding it possible to travel ‘through the heart of France without the least molestation’, the deterioration of Anglo-French relations after Trafalgar in 1805 left the peninsula largely inaccessible to the British until the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

It is a commonplace on occasions such as this for speakers to begin the lecture by acknowledging the honour they feel in having been asked to deliver it. In most instances there is no means of knowing whether the sentiment is anything more than a rhetorical flourish for form’s sake; this evening however may be different, because of the chronological centre of gravity of the Society’s interests, as indicated, for example, by the fact that the great majority of articles in the Society’s journal deal with the buildings of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Thus, as a historian of the architecture of the Middle Ages, I think I can say, not rhetorically, but as an almost quantifiable statement, that it is indeed an honour to be asked to deliver the Society’s annual lecture this evening.

‘When one meets most famous men, it is with a certain sense of disappointment; they so frequently appear to be less than their work, but Adshead seems greater.’ Perhaps this comment by the late Christian Barman explains why the importance of Stanley Davenport Adshead (1868–1947) may be underestimated in the current reassessment of early twentieth-century English architecture. His work as an architect is limited in extent, and as a planner, his achievement was more in preventing change than in causing it. He did not have the reputation as a teacher enjoyed by his self-promoting colleagues C. H. Reilly (1874–1947) and A. E. Richardson (1880–1964), but they and many other notable figures acknowledged his influence and guidance. In the Edwardian classical revival, Adshead introduced a scholarly approach to architecture appropriate to the needs of the time, and as a teacher and practitioner of planning, his attention to the visual qualities of places was exceptional.

In this touching and perceptive memoir written late in his life, John Hardman Powell calls himself Pugin's pupil. He was in fact the only person who had the right to call himself that. Pugin never set up an office in the usual manner of busy mid-nineteenth-century architects. He preferred to work with a small number of close colleagues who understood his aims and could interpret his drawings. George Myers, his builder who worked from London, and John Hardman, the Birmingham metalwork manufacturer, were the principal two members of this group, and the other two were John Gregory Crace, the interior decorator, also London based, and Herbert Minton, the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer. Of these John Hardman was undoubtedly the closest friend.

Conventional knowledge has long credited five architects with varying degrees of responsibility for the design of Lancing College Chapel; the main personae being Richard Cromwell Carpenter (1812–55), his pupil William Slater (1819–72), Carpenter’s son Richard Herbert Carpenter (1841–93), Temple Lushington Moore (1856–1920) and Stephen Dykes Bower (1903–94). Of these Richard Herbert Carpenter is usually cited as the key individual, being identified as the one who originated the executed design. However, recent research has shown that while R. H. Carpenter played an important role in converting an architectural dream into structural reality, it was the less well-known William Slater who was responsible for conceiving much of what Carpenter later developed. This paper recounts the results of these researches, reconsiders the origins of the designs, and sketches their evolution during the nineteenth century.

The Great Pagoda in Kew Gardens is the most important surviving chinoiserie building in Europe. Restoration of the building in 2017–18 was attended by extensive documentary and forensic research, which revealed two markedly different eighteenth-century schemes of decoration undertaken by the architect William Chambers in 1761 and 1784. Both schemes were characterised by the use of innovative and experimental building materials and the application of a varied colour palette which can be shown to have close affinities with temporary, ephemeral buildings. With so few surviving contemporary examples for reference, colour and building materials appear as important characteristics of chinoiserie architecture. The discoveries at Kew demonstrate that these elements were fundamental to the style, which was never constrained by any fixed set of rules. Chambers drew on no single source for the building, but instead imaginatively adapted the Chinese style in a structure of great virtuosity.

In February 1760, Robert Mylne (1733–1811) was declared the winner of the competition for the design of a new bridge to be erected at Blackfriars, London. Work on the foundations began immediately. There were delays in the building programme, certainly, but they were not serious and there were good reasons for them. The bridge was fully opened to traffic in November 1769, and was widely admired, both for the aesthetic of its appearance and its commercial success and general usefulness (Fig. 1). Why then should it have taken over six years, until March 1776, to settle the architect’s bill? This article explores possible answers to the question by considering what parts of the project might have gone wrong, or what other reason would explain the City’s prevarication.

The Survey of London has recently turned its attention to the Charterhouse, that extraordinary combination of medieval priory, Renaissance mansion and Jacobean almshouse and school on the northern fringe of the City. The results of the Survey’s research are due for publication shortly; here there is only space to dwell on a few of the discoveries which have been made, most of them concerning the sculptor John Colt and his role in the refurbishment of the chapel, on Laudian principles, in the mid-1630s. John Newman’s work on Laud’s impact on architecture and interiors is well-known, and we hope this will be a fitting contribution to his celebratory volume.

‘The greatest fa presto in architectural history’, as Paul Frankl called him — although there are plenty of other contenders for that dubious honour — Gilbert Scott occupies an ambiguous place in the history of English architecture. The sheer volume of his work, and its lack of stylistic consistency, disturbed his contemporaries and have continued to vex later writers. Yet the history of the Gothic Revival cannot be written without him, and through some of his buildings he helped shape its future course. Among these buildings was the chapel at Exeter College, Oxford, begun in 1856 and finished three years later. The survival of a substantial collection of drawings and correspondence in the college’s archives enables us to establish and reinterpret the significance of this magnificent and still somewhat under-appreciated building.

In November 1882 the Royal Courts of Justice moved house, exchanging premises built by Sir John Soane along the flank of Westminster Hall (Figs 1, 2 and 3) for George Edmund Street’s Gothic masterpiece in the Strand. The new building, some sixteen years in the making, solved one problem but left another in its wake. Back in Parliament Square were Soane’s Courts, redundant and, worse, covering over a large part of Westminster Hall. Constructed in the late eleventh century, the massive Hall had been transformed three centuries later. Outside are six splendid flying buttresses (Soane had incorporated them into his cross walls) built to receive the thrust generated by Hugh Herland’s peerless hammerbeam roof, a wonder of high medieval carpentry (Fig. 4). Here was an unmissable chance to raise the profile of the ancient masterpiece, which was hemmed in by Georgian brick and masonry, and overshadowed by the modern medieval pomp of Pugin and Barry’s New Palaces of Westminster. The solution seemed simple: demolish Soane’s ranges and tidy up what was left. It was more like housekeeping than architecture and what was more it would not cost much. As for Soane’s ranges (and Vardy’s to the south), they were seen to be completely without merit.

For the Riding-House, 'tis of so vast extent,
It does some mighty Temple represent,
Where seeing them ride, Admiring Indians wo'd
Adore each Horse there as a Semi-God.

In 1668, Mr Thomas Povey made a tour of the great houses of Derbyshire. He visited Chatsworth, Hardwick Hall, and then that ‘considerable Prince, the Duke of Newcastle, and his Pallace, Stables, Riding Houses, and Horses, which are more extraordinarie, then are to bee seene in Europe, If the Curiositie and Excellencie of their Manège Discipline, and Methods, bee considered'. The Duke of Newcastle was William Cavendish (1593-1676), well known for his interest in architecture, and renowned across Europe as an expert in the art of manège or horsemanship. His riding houses at Bolsover Castle and Welbeck Abbey survive, although the latter has been much altered (Figs 1,2 and 3). The first part of this article will examine their date, form and function, particularly through an assessment of the surviving fabric of the Riding House range at Bolsover, and will set them within the context of William Cavendish's other projects for buildings connected with horsemanship in Antwerp and London. The second part will go on to examine the social significance of William Cavendish's horsemanship and its importance for his political career. The tension between innovation and tradition that has been seen in William's Advice on politics and society, written for Charles II, can also be seen reflected in his practice of horsemanship. The concluding section, however, will argue that William Cavendish had personal reasons for wishing to be thought of on horseback, like Perseus upon Pegasus'.

At the beginning of the 1930s three eminent artists, two architects and a painter, became involved in a fascinating project. The architects Hendricus Theodorus Wijdeveld, from Amsterdam, and Erich Mendelsohn, from Berlin, together with the painter Amédée Ozenfant, from Paris — all three of them in their mid-forties and at the peak of their careers — made plans to found an art academy at the Côte d’Azur. It was an ambitious enterprise, which progressed far beyond the stage of conceptual plans. Potential financial sponsors were secured, an appropriate building plot was bought, and articles of association were passed. Leaflets and booklets presenting information on the school’s exceptional teaching programme were translated into several languages, printed and circulated. Artists of international reputation from all disciplines were enlisted as future teaching staff and an impressive list of well known figures from the fields of science, politics, and the arts joined the advisory committee as members.

This article is an attempt to describe the design of the house which Richard Payne Knight built for himself at Downton on the Rock, near Ludlow, between 1772 and 1778 (Fig. 1), showing what the building might have meant to its designer. The house is in some ways familiar enough. Its place as an influential building is already established, it being the subject of a number of studies — the most important to this article being Nicholas Penny’s in The Arrogant Connoisseur — but the house is often misunderstood as a prophetic anticipation of nineteenth-century Mediaevalism. The following text is divided into three sections, examining the building stylistically, functionally and symbolically. The first shows why the reading of the house’s exterior as an exercise in Mediaevalism is unsatisfactory. The second examines the practical rationale for the irregular planning, which is the house’s most important innovation. And the third concludes by suggesting sources for the building’s imagery.

The oldest free-standing monumental obelisk in these islands still to survive is in the Market Place of Ripon (Pl. 26a). That it has not been recognized as such by historians either of Ripon or of art is due to its inscription, which runs:

MDCCLXXXI
ERECTED AT THE EXPENSE OF
WILLIAM AISLABIE ESQUIRE,
WHO REPRESENTED THIS BOROUGH
IN PARLIAMENT SIXTY YEARS.
THE MAYOR, ALDERMAN AND ASSISTANTS
OF RIPON ORDERED THIS INSCRIPTION,
MDCCLXXXV.
THE HONORABLE FREDERICK ROBINSON,
MAYOR

Despite the 1781 date four illustrations exist showing it before then, S. and N. Buck’s town prospect of c. 1745, Thomas Parker’s town prospect (Pl. 26c), and Thomas Gent’s elevation, the two last illustrating Gent’s History of Ripon of 1733, and Samuel Buck’s drawing of c. 1720 (Pl. 27a). There are, in addition, two written descriptions of it earlier than 1781, the earliest being Daniel Defoe’s, published in 1724, but based on a visit made probably in 1719. He wrote: