Editing Gothic Revival architecture (section)

===Pugin and "truth" in architecture===
[[File:Palace of Westminster detail.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|The [[Palace of Westminster]] (1840–1876), designed by [[Charles Barry]] & [[Augustus Pugin]]]]

In the late 1820s, [[Augustus Pugin|A. W. N. Pugin]], still a teenager, was working for two highly visible employers, providing Gothic detailing for luxury goods.{{sfn|Aldrich|Atterbury|1995|p=372}} For the Royal furniture makers Morel and Seddon he provided designs for redecorations for the elderly [[George IV of the United Kingdom|George IV]] at [[Windsor Castle]] in a Gothic taste suited to the setting.{{efn|Pugin subsequently recanted, writing in the second of his two lectures, ''The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture''; "A man who remains any length of time in a modern Gothic room, and escapes without being wounded by some of its minutiae, may consider himself extremely fortunate. There are often as many pinnacles and gables about a [[pier glass]] frame as are to be found in a church. I have perpetrated many of these enormities in the furniture I designed some years ago for Windsor Castle... Collectively they appeared a complete burlesque of pointed design".{{sfn|Charlesworth|2002c|p=199}}}}{{sfn|Hill|2007|pp=74-75}} For the royal silversmiths [[Rundell and Bridge|Rundell Bridge and Co.]], Pugin provided designs for silver from 1828, using the 14th-century Anglo-French Gothic vocabulary that he would continue to favour later in designs for the new Palace of Westminster.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/pugin/bio.html |title=Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52) |publisher=The Victorian Web |access-date=3 October 2008}}</ref> Between 1821 and 1838 Pugin and his father published a series of volumes of [[architectural drawing]]s, the first two entitled, ''Specimens of Gothic Architecture'', and the following three, ''Examples of Gothic Architecture'', that were to remain both in print and the standard references for Gothic Revivalists for at least the next century.{{sfn|Hill|2007|pp=52-53}}

In ''Contrasts: or, a Parallel between the Noble Edifices of the Middle Ages, and similar Buildings of the Present Day'' (1836), Pugin expressed his admiration not only for medieval art but for the whole medieval ethos, suggesting that Gothic architecture was the product of a purer society. In ''The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture'' (1841), he set out his "two great rules of design: 1st, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction or propriety; 2nd, that all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building". Urging modern craftsmen to seek to emulate the style of medieval workmanship as well as reproduce its methods, Pugin sought to reinstate Gothic as the true Christian architectural style.{{sfn|Charlesworth|2002c|pp=168–171}}

Pugin's most notable project was the [[Palace of Westminster|Houses of Parliament]] in London, after its predecessor was largely destroyed in a fire in 1834.{{efn|Pugin recorded his delight at the destruction of what he considered the wholly inadequate earlier restorations of [[James Wyatt]] and [[John Soane]]. "You have doubtless seen the accounts of the late great conflagration at Westminster. There is nothing much to regret...a vast amount of Soane's mixtures and Wyatt's heresies have been consigned to oblivion. Oh it was a glorious sight to see his composition mullions and cement pinnacles flying and cracking."{{sfn|Atterbury|Wainwright|1994|p=219}}}}{{sfn|Hill|2007|p=317}} His part in the design consisted of two campaigns, 1836–1837 and again in 1844 and 1852, with the classicist [[Charles Barry]] as his nominal superior. Pugin provided the external decoration and the interiors, while Barry designed the symmetrical layout of the building, causing Pugin to remark, "All Grecian, Sir; Tudor details on a classic body".{{sfn|Atterbury|Wainwright|1994|p=221}}