Howard Colvin

This authoritative and now classic work of reference on the history of British architecture contains biographical information on some 2,000 architects who practiced in England, Scotland, and Wales from the time of Inigo Jones (1573-1652) to that of William Burn (1789-1870) and Sir Charles Barry (1795-1860). This new edition is the fourth of what began in 1954 as A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects 1600-1840. It now includes 62 newly identified architects and about 700 additional building entries.The dictionary lists every building of importance whose architect can be identified, together with such details as dates of erection and demolition, style, and references to illustrations and published descriptions. Besides a concise biography of each architect, the book gives, whenever possible, a brief assessment of the quality of the architect's work. All architectural books published by British architects of the period are listed by author name.Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Inigo Jones, the first English classical architect, was famous in his own time and was the posthumous sponsor of the Palladian movement of the eighteenth century. This authoritative and elegantly written book, first published in 1966, reassessed Jones’s life and career, cleared away the myths of attribution that surround his work, and reassigned to him projects that had disappeared from his oeuvre. Summerson’s classic text is enhanced by a new foreword and notes by Howard Colvin, updated bibliography, and improved illustrations.

Widely acknowledged as Britain’s leading architectural historian, Sir Howard Colvin has been responsible for fundamental research that has helped to bring about a renaissance in English architectural history in the second half of the twentieth century. In this volume, Colvin gathers eighteen new and revised essays written throughout his distinguished career.The collection includes five essays never before published, including one which looks afresh at the architectural apparatus of sixteenth-century state entries and another that explores the use of caryatids and other formalized human figures in English architecture from Tudor times onwards. The author also offers reprinted essays, revised where necessary, on such topics as the idea of a "Court Style" in medieval English architecture, the south front of Wilton House, and the infiltration of the Georgian Office of Works by an architectural pressure group led by Lord Burlington. Several essays reflect the author's long-standing interest in the problem of the persistence of Gothic architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and its revival in the eighteenth, and another treats his equally long-standing interest in the history of the architectural profession. The author concludes with his recollections of what can now be seen as a golden age of English architectural research in the years following the Second World War.Published for the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art