Victorian architecture (1837-1901)
Though new technology
drove innovation in Victorian architecture, nostalgia was its keynote.
Past eras were plundered for inspiration.
Both
watered-down Regency Classicism
and the Greek Revival continued after Victoria came to the throne, but
as her long reign wore on a battle of the styles
developed. The Gothic Revival
had a powerful grip on the imaginations of architects between 1855 and
1885. That still left room for a bewildering array of other borrowings
from the past. Perhaps national pride encouraged an admiration for the
architecture of previous periods of national confidence: Elizabethan, Jacobean and Scottish Baronial. Meanwhile
Italianate Romanesque
was one of the styles encouraged by John Ruskin's influential works
(see sources below).
Britain had led the industrial revolution.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 displayed the end products in a showcase
which was itself a triumph of 19th-century engineering. The Crystal
Palace designed by Sir
Joseph Paxton was lavish with Victorian innovations -
iron-frame construction, sheet glass, and integral heating. Its use of
prefabrication and standardisation was a pointer to the future.
This vision of the machine age produced a backlash. The Arts
and Crafts Movement, triggered by 
John Ruskin and William
Morris, promoted the revival of traditional building crafts and the use
of local materials in emulation of vernacular
architecture. Richard
Norman Shaw (1831-1912) was a brilliant exponent of the
approach, producing a series of influential country houses in the 'Old
English' style and then developing the 'Queen Anne' style for town and
country. He was followed by the even more admired Sir Edwin Lutyens
(1869-1944).
Though it sprang from nostalgia, some elements of Arts and Crafts design influenced the development of a new style towards the end of the century - Art Nouveau. As the endless parade of period imitation began to pall, Art Nouveau offered a break with the past.
Sources
- Avery, D., Victorian and Edwardian Architecture (2003). The helpful index acts as a list of architects of the period and the buildings they designed.
- BBC, Period Style: Victorian gives details of interiors.
- Brodie, A., Felstead, A., Franklin, J., Pinfield, L. and Oldfield, J., Directory of British Architects 1834-1914 (RIBA 2001). The definitive biographical reference tool for the Victorian and Edwardian periods, based on material in the British Architectural Library and elsewhere.
- Dixon, R. and Muthesius, S., Victorian Architecture (1976).
- Girouard, M., Sweetness and Light: The
Queen Anne
Movement, 1860-1900 (1977). - Girouard, M., The Victorian Country House (1971).
- Orbach, J., Victorian Architecture in Britain (1987).
- Osband, L., Victorian House Style: An architectural and interior design sourcebook (1991).
- Ruskin, John, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849).
- Ruskin, John, The Stones of Venice (1851-3).
- Tyrrell-Lewis, S., Bricks and Brass: Getting to know your period home concentrates on the Victorian and Edwardian periods.
- Wedd, K., The Victorian House (The Victorian Society 2000).
- Yorke, T., The Victorian House Explained (2005).
- The Victorian Society is the national society responsible for the study and protection of Victorian and Edwardian architecture.