Editing Architecture of England (section)

==Style revivals==

===Stuart architecture===
{{Main|Jacobean architecture|Restoration style|English Baroque}}
[[Image:Queens House 2006.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The Queen's House, Greenwich]]
During the 17th century, the continuing advance of Classical forms overrode the eclecticism of English Renaissance architecture, which gave way to a more uniform style derived from continental models, chiefly from Italy. This entailed a retreat from the structural sophistication of Gothic architecture to forms derived from the more primitive construction methods of Classical antiquity. The style was typified by square or round-headed windows and doors, flat ceilings, [[colonnade]]s, [[pilaster]]s, [[pediment]]s and [[dome]]s. Classical architecture in England tended to be relatively plain and simple in comparison with the contemporaneous [[Baroque architecture]] of the continent, being influenced above all by the [[Palladian architecture|Palladian style]] of Italy. This was first introduced to England by [[Inigo Jones]] and typified by his [[Queen's House]] at [[Greenwich, London|Greenwich]].

[[Image:St Paul's Cathedral dome from Paternoster Square - London - 240404.jpg|thumb|left|200px|The [[dome]] of St Paul's Cathedral, designed by Sir [[Christopher Wren]]]]
The [[Great Fire of London]] in 1666 forced the reconstruction of much of the city, which was the only part of the country to see a significant amount of church-building between the Reformation and the 19th century. Sir [[Christopher Wren]] was employed to replace many of the destroyed churches, but his master plan for rebuilding London as a whole was rejected. Wren's churches exemplify the distinctive English approach to church-building in the Classical manner, which largely rejected the domes that typified the continental Baroque and employed a wide range of different forms of [[steeple (architecture)|steeple]], experimental efforts to find a substitute for the Gothic [[spire]] within a Classical mode. However, a dome featured very prominently in Wren's grandest construction, [[St Paul's Cathedral]], the only English cathedral in any permutation of the Classical tradition.

The later 17th century saw Baroque architecture – a version of Classicism characterised by heavy massing and ostentatiously elaborate decoration – become widespread in England. Grand Baroque-style country houses began to appear in England during the 1690s, exemplified by [[Chatsworth House]] and [[Castle Howard]]. The most significant English Baroque architects after Wren were Sir [[John Vanbrugh]] and [[Nicholas Hawksmoor]], who adapted the Baroque style to fit English tastes in houses such as [[Blenheim Palace]], [[Seaton Delaval Hall]] and [[Easton Neston house|Easton Neston]].

===Georgian architecture===
{{Main|Georgian architecture}}
[[Image:the.circus.bath.arp.jpg|thumb|right|[[The Circus (Bath)]]]]
The 18th century saw a turn away from Baroque elaboration and a reversion to a more austere approach to Classicism. This shift initially brought a return to the Italian Palladianism that had characterised the earliest manifestations of Classical architecture in England. Later [[Neoclassical architecture]] increasingly idealised ancient Greek forms, which were viewed as representing Classicism in its original "purity", as against Roman forms. Country houses representing this style include [[Woburn Abbey]] and [[Kedleston Hall]]. This period also saw the emergence of an increasingly planned approach to urban expansion, and the systematic, simultaneous construction of whole streets or squares, or even of entire districts, gave rise to new forms of domestic construction, the [[terrace (architecture)|terrace]] and the [[crescent (architecture)|crescent]], as exemplified in [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]] and in [[Bloomsbury]] and [[Mayfair]] in [[London]].  Among the notable architects practising in this era were [[Robert Adam]], Sir [[William Chambers (architect)|William Chambers]], [[John Wood, the Younger|John Wood]] and [[James Wyatt]].

===Victorian architecture===
{{Main|Victorian architecture}}
[[Image:palace.of.westminster.arp.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The [[Palace of Westminster]], completed in 1870. Designed by Sir [[Charles Barry]] and [[Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin|A. W. N. Pugin]]]]
The 19th century saw a fragmentation of English architecture, as Classical forms continued in widespread use but were challenged by a series of distinctively English revivals of other styles, drawing chiefly on Gothic, Renaissance and vernacular traditions but incorporating other elements as well. This ongoing historicism was counterposed by a resumption of technical innovation, which had been largely in abeyance since the Renaissance but was now fuelled by new materials and techniques derived from the [[Industrial Revolution]], particularly the use of iron and [[steel frame]]s, and by the demand for new types of building. The rapid growth and urbanisation of the population entailed an immense amount of new domestic and commercial construction, while the same processes combined with a religious revival to bring about a resumption of widespread church building. Mechanised manufacturing, railways and public utilities required new forms of building, while the new industrial cities invested heavily in grand civic buildings and the huge expansion and diversification of educational, cultural and leisure activities likewise created new demands on architecture.

The [[Gothic revival]] was a development which emerged in England and whose influence, except in church building, was largely restricted to the English-speaking world. It had begun on a small scale in the 18th century under the stimulus of [[Romanticism]], a trend initiated by [[Horace Walpole]]'s house [[Strawberry Hill House|Strawberry Hill]]. However, widespread Gothic construction began only in the 19th century, led by the renewal of church building but spreading to secular construction. Early Gothic revival architecture was whimsical and unsystematic, but in the Victorian era the revival developed an abstract rigour and became a movement driven by cultural, religious and social concerns which extended far beyond architecture, seeing the Gothic style and the medieval way of life as a route to the spiritual regeneration of society. The first great ideologue of this movement was [[Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin]], who together with [[Charles Barry]] designed the new [[Houses of Parliament]], the grandest work of Victorian Gothic architecture.

[[Image:St Pancras Railway Station.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[St Pancras Station]], designed by [[George Gilbert Scott]]]]
The Parliament building's Perpendicular style reflects the predominance of the later forms of English Gothic in the early Victorian period, but this later gave way to a preference for plain Early English or French Gothic, and above all to a style derived from the architecture of medieval Italy and the [[Low Countries]]. This [[High Victorian Gothic]] was driven chiefly by the writings of [[John Ruskin]], based on his observations of the buildings of [[Venice]], while its archetypal practitioner was the church architect [[William Butterfield]]. It was characterised by heavy massing, sparse use of tracery or sculptural decoration and an emphasis on polychrome patterning created through the use of different colours of brick and stone. The Gothic revival also drove a widespread effort to restore deteriorating medieval churches, a practice which often went beyond restoration to involve [[Victorian restoration|extensive reconstruction]]. The most active exponent of this activity was also the most prolific designer of new Gothic buildings, [[George Gilbert Scott]], whose work is exemplified by [[St Pancras Station]]. Other leading Victorian Gothic architects included [[George Edmund Street|G. E. Street]], [[John Loughborough Pearson|J. F. Pearson]] and [[George Frederick Bodley|G. F. Bodley]].

The Victorian period saw a revival of interest in English vernacular building traditions, focusing chiefly on domestic architecture and employing features such as [[timber framing|half-timbering]] and tile-hanging, whose leading practitioner was [[Richard Norman Shaw]]. This development too was shaped by much wider ideological considerations, strongly influenced by [[William Morris]] and the [[Arts and Crafts Movement]]. While its ethos shared much with the Gothic revival, its preoccupations were less religious and were connected with romantic socialism and a distaste for industrialisation and urban life. On the other hand, [[British industrial architecture]] both revived old styles and developed new ones. In the later 19th century vernacular elements mingled with forms drawn from the Renaissance architecture of England and the Low Countries to produce a synthesis dubbed the [[British Queen Anne Revival architecture|Queen Anne Style]], which in fact bore very little resemblance to the architecture of that reign. While some architects of the period were ideologically committed to a particular manner, a tendency personified by Pugin, others were happy to move between styles. An exemplar of this approach was [[Alfred Waterhouse]], whose works included buildings in Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance styles and eclectic fusions between them.

[[File:Kew Gardens Palm House, London - July 2009.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The Palm House at [[Kew Gardens]], a key example of Victorian glasshouse construction]]

The new technology of iron and steel frame construction exerted an influence over many forms of building, although its use was often masked by traditional forms. It was highly prominent in two of the new forms of building that characterised Victorian architecture, railway station train sheds and glasshouses. The greatest exponent of the latter was [[Joseph Paxton]], architect of [[the Crystal Palace]].

In the 18th century a few English architects had emigrated to the colonies, but as the [[British Empire]] became firmly established in the 19th century many architects at the start of their careers made the decision to emigrate, several chose the United States but most went to Canada, Australia or New Zealand, as opportunities arose to meet the growing demand for buildings in these countries. Normally they adopted the style of architecture fashionable when they left England, though by the latter half of the century, improving transport and communications meant that even quite remote parts of the Empire had access to many publications, such as [[Building (magazine)|The Builder]] magazine. This enabled colonial architects to stay abreast of current fashion. Thus the influence of English architecture spread across the world. Several prominent 19th century architects produced designs that were executed by architects in the various colonies. For example, Sir George Gilbert Scott designed [[University of Mumbai|Bombay University]] & William Butterfield designed [[St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide]].

===Historical styles in the 20th century===
The last great exponent of late Victorian free Renaissance eclecticism was [[Edwin Lutyens]], and his shift into the Classical mode after 1900 symbolised a wider retreat from the stylistic ferment of the 19th century to a plain and homogenous Classicism based on Georgian exemplars, an approach followed by many architects of the early 20th century, notably [[Herbert Baker]] and [[Reginald Blomfield]]. This Neo-Georgian manner, while not greatly favoured in later decades by the architectural profession or architecture critics, has remained popular with clients and conservative commentators, notably [[Charles, Prince of Wales]]. Domestic architecture throughout the 20th century and beyond has continued to be strongly influenced by a homogenised version of Victorian vernacular revival styles. Some architects responded to modernism, and economic circumstances, by producing stripped-down versions of traditional styles; the work of [[Giles Gilbert Scott]] illustrates this well.