Famous architects like Jones, Wren, Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor may dominate architectural history, but the world they lived and operated in—the shape of buildings, the way they were conceived and used, the basic design language, materials and techniques—was remade in the seventeenth century by craftspeople, working with each other and with their clients. This ‘building revolution’ was influenced by social, economic, technical and climatic/environmental factors, including the transition from timber-framing to thin-walled brick construction; changes in the shape of households; changes in house-plans; changes in roof-design and window-design; changes in the means of heating. These factors helped houses to be planned in accordance with the basic principles of Classicism, but they were evidently important in themselves. A complex interplay of factors was involved here. Architects only played a marginal role in all this, in the British Isles at any rate, as their profession hardly existed at the time. This ‘building revolution’, which had parallels in other European countries, created a new kind of English vernacular, which developed into the provincial architecture of the Georgian age.
Speaker Bio
Steven Brindle is a freelance historian specialising in the history of architecture and engineering. He retired from English Heritage last year, having worked there for 36 years as an historian and an Inspector of Ancient Monuments. He has published extensively on these subjects, with major books including Brunel, the Man who Built the World (2005); Windsor Castle, A Thousand Years of a Royal Palace (2018, as editor); and London, Lost Interiors (2024). This talk relates his book Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530-1830 (Paul Mellon Centre, 2023), which was the co-winner of the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion for 2024.
Registration
Register below, or via email to website@sahgb.org.uk.
Location
This SAHGB - IHR seminar will be a hybrid event, taking place online and in person at Senate House.
Updated Location: SH243 (Senate House, South Block, Second Floor Malet St, London WC1E 7HU).
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