pele SciaSction - new media

UNITED KINGDOM
Salman Rushdie.
Important poets include Elizabeth Barrett Browning, T. S.
Eliot, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, John Milton, Alfred
Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, Alexander Pope, and Dylan
Thomas.
Architecture
The earliest remnants of architecture in the United
Kingdom are mainly neolithic monuments such as
Stonehenge and Avebury, and Roman ruins such as the
spa in Bath. Many castles remain from the medieval
period and in most towns and villages the parish church is
an indication of the age of the settlement, built as they
were from stone rather than the traditional wattle and
daub.
Over the two centuries following the Norman conquest of
1066, and the building of the Tower of London, many
great castles such as Caernarfon Castle in Wales and
Carrickfergus Castle in Ireland were built to suppress the
natives. Large houses continued to be fortified until the
Tudor period, when the first of the large gracious
unfortified mansions such as the Elizabethan Montacute
House and Hatfield House were built.
The Civil War 164249 proved to be the last time in British
history that houses had to survive a siege. Corfe Castle
was destroyed following an attack by Oliver Cromwell's
army, but Compton Wynyates survived a similar ordeal.
After this date houses were built purely for living, and
design and appearance were for ever more important
than defence.
Just prior to the Civil War, Inigo Jones, who is regarded as
the first significant British architect, came to prominence.
He was responsible for importing the Palladian manner of
architecture to Britain from Italy; the Queen's House at
Greenwich is perhaps his best surviving work.
Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and
the Great Fire of London in 1666 an opportunity was
missed in London to create a new metropolitan city,
featuring modern architectural styles. Although one of the
best known British architects, Sir Christopher Wren, was
employed to design and rebuild many of the ruined
ancient churches of London, his master plan for
rebuilding London as a whole was rejected. It was in this
period that he designed the building that he is perhaps
best known for, St Paul's Cathedral.
In the early 18th century baroque architecture popular in
Europe was introduced, and Blenheim Palace was built in
this era. However, baroque was quickly replaced by a
return of the Palladian form. The Georgian architecture
of the 18th century was an evolved form of Palladianism.
Many existing buildings such as Woburn Abbey and
Kedleston Hall are in this style. Among the many
architects of this form of architecture and its successors,
neoclassical and romantic, were Robert Adam, Sir
William Chambers, and James Wyatt.
In the early 19th century the romantic medieval gothic
style appeared as a backlash to the symmetry of
Palladianism, and such buildings as Fonthill Abbey were
built. By the middle of the 19th century, as a result of new
technology, construction was able to develop
incorporating steel as a building component; one of the
greatest exponents of this was Joseph Paxton, architect of
the Crystal Palace. Paxton also continued to build such
houses as Mentmore Towers, in the still popular
retrospective Renaissance styles. In this era of prosperity
and development British architecture embraced many
new methods of construction, but ironically in style, such
architects as August Pugin ensured it remained firmly in
the past.
At the beginning of the 20th century a new form of design
arts and crafts became popular, the architectural form of
this style, which had evolved from the 19th century
designs of such architects as George Devey, was
championed by Edwin Lutyens. Arts and crafts in
architecture is symbolized by an informal, non
symmetrical form, often with mullioned or lattice
windows, multiple gables and tall chimneys. This style
continued to evolve until World War II.
Following the Second World War reconstruction went
through a variety of phases, but was heavily influenced by
Modernism, especially from the late 1950s to the early
1970s. Many bleak town centre redevelopments
criticised for featuring hostile, concrete-lined "windswept
plazas"were the fruit of this interest, as were many equally
bleak public buildings, such as the Hayward Gallery.
Many Modernist inspired town centres are today in the
process of being redeveloped, Bracknell town centre
being a case in point.
However, it should not be forgotten that in the immediate
post-War years many thousands (perhaps hundreds of
thousands) of council houses in vernacular style were
built, giving working class people their first experience of
private gardens and indoor sanitation.
Modernism remains a significant force in UK architecture,
although its influence is felt predominantly in commercial
buildings. The two most prominent proponents are Lord
Rogers of Riverside and Lord Foster of Thames Bank.
Rogers' iconic London buildings are probably Lloyd's
Building and the Millennium Dome, while Foster created
the Swiss Re Buildings (aka The Gherkin) and the Greater
London Authority H.Q.
OPEN TRADE 61
Oct-Dec 2007