"A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture. Nearly everything that encloses space on a scale sufficient for a human being to move in is a building; the term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal."
So wrote Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902—1983), the author, as Wikipedia states, of a "46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England (1951-74), one of the great achievements of 20th century art scholarship."
To order the latest editions of these celebrated guides, click here. And to hear one of Pevsner's Reith radio lectures about English art, click here.
Originally posted on An Aesthete's Lament on 5 December 2008.
He was a little bit pompous and Germanic in his writings, but ohhhhhh did he know architecture. Pevsner is my all time hero.
ReplyDeleteIndeed occasionally carried away by his own ideas (um, unlike myself or others, of course), but just brilliant. Of course somewhere in there allowance must be made for those buildings that have inadvertent aesthetic appeal, no? And that in turn in inspire designed buildings...oh, its an endless slope..
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. I like brilliance. It rises above!
ReplyDeletethank you , again. Please continue.
I so appreciate it. For many.
Penelope
I also like "Hels"!!! what is that story? Love her hat! Should I add a picture? Hadn't thought of it!
ReplyDeleteWould you be interested in my Pevsner website? - created to support a biography coming out in August 2011. It's at http://www.pevsnerinfo.cswebsites.org/ with a blog at http://susieharries.wordpress.com
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ReplyDeleteDear Susie, Thanks for the information about the website and the news about the forthcoming biography! Looking very forward to reading it.
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