Editing Nikolaus Pevsner (section)

==Life==

Nikolaus Pevsner was born in [[Leipzig]], [[Kingdom of Saxony|Saxony]], the son of Anna and her husband Hugo Pevsner, a Russian-Jewish fur merchant. He attended [[St. Thomas School, Leipzig]], and went on to study at several universities, [[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich|Munich]], [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Berlin]], and [[Goethe University Frankfurt|Frankfurt am Main]], before being awarded a [[doctorate]] by [[Leipzig University|Leipzig]] in 1924 for a thesis on the [[Architecture of Leipzig#Leipzig bourgeois town houses and oriel windows of the Baroque era|Baroque architecture of Leipzig]].{{sfn|Engel|2004|p=}} In 1923, he married Carola ("Lola") Kurlbaum, the daughter of distinguished Leipzig lawyer Alfred Kurlbaum.{{sfn|Games|2010|p=}} He worked as an assistant keeper at the [[Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister|Dresden Gallery]] between 1924 and 1928. He converted from [[Judaism]] to [[Lutheranism]] early in his life.

During this period he became interested in establishing the supremacy of German modernist architecture after becoming aware of [[Le Corbusier]]'s Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau at the [[Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes|Paris Exhibition of 1925]]. In 1928, he contributed the volume on [[Italian baroque]] painting to the ''Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft'', a multi-volume series providing an overview of the history of European art. He taught at the [[University of Göttingen]] between 1929 and 1933, offering a specialist course on [[English art]] and [[English architecture|architecture]]. According to biographers Stephen Games and Susie Harries, Pevsner welcomed many of the economic and cultural policies of the early [[Nazi Germany|Hitler regime]]. However, due to [[Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service|Nazi race laws]] he was forced to resign his lectureship at Göttingen in 1933.

His first intention was to move to Italy, but after failing to find an academic post there, Pevsner moved to England in 1933, settling in [[Hampstead]] at [[2, Wildwood Terrace]], where poet [[Geoffrey Grigson]] was his next-door neighbour at No. 3.<ref>Orbach, Julian, [https://www.mychippenham.org.uk/latest/73-nikolaus-pevsner-and-clyffe-pypard-by-julian-orbach "Nikolaus Pevsner and Clyffe Pypard"], ''My Chippenham''.</ref><ref>Games, Stephen, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wpm1CwAAQBAJ&dq=pevsner%2Bgeoffrey+grigson%2Bwildwood+terrace&pg=PA17 "3: Geoffrey Grigson"], ''Pevsner: The BBC Years: Listening to the Visual Arts'', Routledge, 2016, p. 17.</ref><ref>T. F. T. Baker, Diane K. Bolton and Patricia E. C. Croot, [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol9/pp66-71 "Hampstead: North End, Littleworth, and Spaniard's End"], in C. R. Elrington (ed.),''A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9, Hampstead, Paddington'', ed. (London, 1989), pp. 66–71. British History Online. Retrieved 29 November 2018.</ref> Pevsner's first post was an 18-month research fellowship at the [[University of Birmingham]], found for him by friends in Birmingham and partly funded by the [[Council for Assisting Refugee Academics|Academic Assistance Council]].<ref name="bham">{{cite news |year=2005 |title=A landlady in a million? Snapshots of days gone by |page=10 |newspaper=Birmingham University online newspaper |issue=57 |url=http://www.download.bham.ac.uk/buzz/Buzz_57.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090325164229/https://www.download.bham.ac.uk/buzz/Buzz_57.pdf |archive-date=25 March 2009}}</ref> A study of the role of the designer in the industrial process, the research produced a generally critical account of design standards in Britain which he published as ''An Enquiry into Industrial Art in England'' (Cambridge University Press, 1937). He was subsequently employed as a buyer of modern textiles, glass and ceramics for the [[Sydney Gordon Russell|Gordon Russell]] furniture showrooms in London.

By this time Pevsner had also completed ''Pioneers of the Modern Movement: from William Morris to Walter Gropius'', his influential pre-history of what he saw as [[Walter Gropius]]' dominance of contemporary design. ''Pioneers'' ardently championed Gropius's first two buildings (both pre–First World War) on the grounds that they summed up all the essential goals of 20th-century architecture; in England, however, it was widely taken to be the history of England's contribution to international modernism, and a manifesto for [[Bauhaus]] modernism, which it was not.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}} In spite of that, the book remains an important point of reference in the teaching of the history of modern design, and helped lay the foundation of Pevsner's career in England as an architectural historian. Since its first publication by [[Faber & Faber]] in 1936, it has gone through several editions and been translated into many languages.{{sfn|Amory|2009|pp=617–618}} The second edition, published by the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in 1949, was renamed ''Pioneers of Modern Design''.{{sfn|Amory|2009|p=618}}