Victorian architecture is all around us. After a post-war period in which Victorian buildings were deemed 'monstrosities' and many were demolished in favour of modernism, there is now a recognition of the inventiveness, dynamism, and aesthetic appeal of so many Victorian structures. A great deal has been lost, but much has now been lovingly restored.
As well as domestic housing - some modest, some grand - the period saw an enormous expansion in public and commercial buildings: town halls, churches, railway stations, hospitals, museums, banks and hotels.
Architects
Many of the new building projects were open to competition and this provided an unprecedented opportunity for a young architect who wished to make his way in his profession. In 1836, for example, Charles Barry won the competition for the new houses of Parliament. Architecture was a subject of great public interest and the most esteemed architects, such as Barry, received knighthoods.There were also many private commissions created by the patronage of wealthy individuals who worked alongside architects to produce noteworthy. Thomas Cubitt was granted commissions by the duke of Bedford and the marquess of Westminster. In 1845 he was authorised by Prince Albert to proceed with a new residence at Osborne.
From 1866 William Burges transformed Cardiff Castle for the 3rd Marquess of Bute and in 1875 he began work on Castle Coch.
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| Castle Coch, a rich man's Gothic fantasy |
The architect was now a recognised professional working alongside a quantity surveyor. In 1834 the Institute of British Architects had been founded, given a royal charter in 1837. But there were few architectural schools and the majority of architects learned their trade through apprenticeships. Architectural practice was spread through journals.
The Gothic
The favoured style of most architects was the Gothic, popularised by A. W. N. Pugin, whose idealisation of the Middle Ages was profoundly influential. |
| Pugin's Contrasts (1836) The modern workhouse compared with medieval charity. Public domain |
The Gothic revival was heavily influenced by two works by John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851-3). In the second edition of The Seven Lamps, he set out his position clearly.
I have now no doubt that the only style proper for modern northern work, is the Northern Gothic of the thirteenth century, as exemplified, in England, pre-eminently by the cathedrals of Lincoln and Wells, and, in France, by those of Paris, Amiens, Chartres, Rheims, and Bourges, and by the transepts of that of Rouen.What he loved about the Gothic was its expression of individuality, and even imperfection, compared with what he saw as the sterile formalism and uniformity of the classical style.
It is perhaps the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture, that they … receive the labour of inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfection, and betraying that imperfection in every touch, indulgently raise up a stately and unaccusable whole.This idealisation of the Gothic was not a purely British development. In France, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was also extolling the Gothic and restoring buildings in the Gothic style.
The style came to be particularly associated with Sir George Gilbert Scott. He was the son of a clergyman and he specialised in ecclesiastical buildings, though he also designed the Albert Memorial and the St Pancras Station hotel. However he produced classical designs for the Foreign Office.
The High-Church Gothic architect, William Butterfield, designed two Tractarian buildings All Saints Margaret Street in London and Keble College, Oxford.
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| Butterfield's Keble College chapel, opened 1876 |
The dominant architect of the mid-Victorian period was Alfred Waterhouse. He was born in Liverpool but some of his most notable work took place in Manchester, where his Gothic designs won the competitions for the assize courts and the town hall. He did not confine himself to the Gothic and constructed the Natural History Museum along the lines of a Romanesque church.
The most advanced architect of the late Victorian period was Richard Norman Shaw. He designed Gothic buildings but he also took architecture beyond the Gothic. His concern was to evolve a style of architecture based on the English vernacular. One of his most spectacular buildings was Cragside in Northumberland.
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| Cragside: beyond the Gothic |
New materials
Because of the nineteenth-century transport revolution builders were not confined to local materials. The repeal of the brick tax in 1850 meant that St Pancras station and its hotel could be built in the 1860s of Nottingham red brick, brought south by the Midland Railway. Westminster Cathedral was built with brick from Peterborough. The terracotta tiles that face the Natural History Museum came from Tamworth. Polychrome brickwork became a characteristic of Victorian architecture.Below are a few from the very many examples of the varied ways in which the Victorians applied the architectural language of previous centuries to contemporary conditions.
Station architecture
The London to Birmingham Railway, engineered by Robert Stephenson was opened in 1837. Its London terminus was designed by Philip Hardwick and his son P. C. Hardwick. The station was approached through the 'Euston Arch', in reality a Doric propylaeum or gateway. It cost about £30,000 but the company thought it a good investment as people flocked to see it when it was built.
The Italianate Newcastle station was opened in 1850 by the Queen. The train shed used curved wrought-iron ribs to support an arched roof, the first of its kind in the world.
After 1851 stations drew on the experience of building the Crystal Palace. King's Cross station was built in 1851-2 to a design by Lewis Cubitt. The train sheds copy the techniques of the transepts of the Crystal Palace. The façade consists of a screen of yellow stock brick pierced by two arched windows, with an Italianate clock tower in between.
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| King's Cross station at its opening in 1852. |
St Pancras station, opened in 1868 was the London terminus of the Midland Railway. It was intended as a structure that would eclipse in size all the previous London stations.
Museum architecture
The British Museum was designed by Sir Robert Smirke in the style of the Greek revival. But in the Victorian period a second wave of construction took place under the Italian librarian Anthony Panizzi. By the early 1850s he conceived the idea of constructing a round room in the empty central courtyard of the Museum building. With a design by Smirke work on the reading room began in 1854 and was completed three years later. With a diameter of 140 feet, the room was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. It was constructed by segments on a cast iron framework. The papier mâché ceiling is suspended on cast iron struts hanging down from the frame. The room was opened on 2 May 1857. It was opened for public viewing between 8 and 16 May and over 62,000 visitors came to see it.
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| The British Museum reading room Wikimedia Creative Commons |
The British Museum was stylistically conservative - classical rather than Gothic - as were the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. However, the Natural History Museum in South Kensington was stylistically much more innovative innovative.
It was the brainchild of the palaeontologist Richard Owen, who was appointed superintendent of the British Museum Natural History departments in 1856. He saw that the collections needed more space and because the British Museum site was limited, he planned a new site in South Kensington. In 1866 the commission was granted to Alfred Waterhouse. Work began in 1873 and the museum was finally completed in 1881 at a cost of £395,000.
It was the brainchild of the palaeontologist Richard Owen, who was appointed superintendent of the British Museum Natural History departments in 1856. He saw that the collections needed more space and because the British Museum site was limited, he planned a new site in South Kensington. In 1866 the commission was granted to Alfred Waterhouse. Work began in 1873 and the museum was finally completed in 1881 at a cost of £395,000.
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| The Natural History Museum, designed by Waterhouse as a temple of science modelled on a Romanesque cathedral |
Waterhouse's design was influenced by his frequent visits to the Continent. The style is an idiosyncratic version of Romanesque. The façade to the Cromwell Road is 675 feet long and is punctuated by central towers which rise to 192 feet. It is faced with terracotta tiles manufactured by the Tamworth-based company of Gibbs and Canning Ltd. The tiles and bricks feature relief sculptures of flora and fauna, with living and extinct species in different wings, the living in the west and the extinct in the east. This may have been Owen's rebuke to Darwin. Between the central towers is a great arched portico, which leads to a hall giving access to the galleries.
Manchester: flagship city
In keeping with its self-confidence as 'Cottonopolis', Manchester saw the building of grand warehouses based on the style of the Italian Renaissance. The J. Brown and Son Warehouse (1851) was one of the most impressive
Possibly the largest is the sandstone Watt's Warehouse, a six-storey palazzo (now the Britannia Hotel), built in 1856 by Travis and Magnell at a cost of £100,000. It is designed in the form of a Venetian palazzo, and has five floors each built in a different architectural style. The four roof towers break up the horizontal cornice at regular intervals.
In the 1860s a campaign was underway to build a magnificent town hall that would celebrate Manchester's cultural and economic dominance. The competition was won by Alfred Waterhouse. His problem was how to create an impressive building on an awkward site in Albert Square and he created a Gothic style that owed much to Venetian architecture. The Town Hall opened in 1878.
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| Manchester Town Hall - a palace for King Cotton Public domain |
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| The Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall |
Conclusion
- The Victorian period, a time of rapid population growth, increased prosperity, and technological innovation, saw an unprecedented demand for new buildings, both public and private.
- Architects tended to favour the Gothic, though some looked back to the classical period, while others merged the Gothic with Italianate or English vernacular styles.
- The new buildings were a reflection of opulence, self-confidence and stylistic and technical innovation.
