Andrew Saint - Böcker

The south London parish of Battersea has roots as a working village, growing produce for London markets, and as a high-class suburb, with merchants’ villas on the elevated ground around Clapham and Wadsworth Commons.  Battersea enjoyed spectacular growth during Queen Victoria’s reign, and railroads brought industry and a robust building boom, transforming the parish into another of London’s dense, smoky neighborhoods, though not without its unique and distinguishing features.  Among these are Battersea Park, which was created by the Crown in the 1850s; the monumental Battersea Power Station, completed in 1939; and Clapham Junction railway station, which is, by measure of passenger interchanges, the busiest station in the United Kingdom. The two latest volumes of the Survey of London, 49 and 50, trace Battersea’s development from medieval times to the present day.  Offering detailed analysis of its streets and buildings both thematically and topographically, and including copious original in-depth research and investigation, the books are a trove of architectural history and British history.  Profusely illustrated with new and archival images, architectural drawings and maps, these volumes are welcome additions to the acclaimed Survey of London series.Published for English Heritage by Yale University Press on behalf of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Providing essential knowledge about the British capital’s built environment, these two volumes cover a large portion of the parish of St. Marylebone, bounded to the south by Oxford Street and to the north by the Marylebone Road, and stretching from just west of Marylebone High Street to the parish boundary along Cleveland Street near Tottenham Court Road to the east.  This area is rich in historic buildings and includes some of London’s most celebrated addresses, including Portland Place, Cavendish Square, and Harley Street.  Among the most important buildings covered in this superbly illustrated book are Robert and James Adam’s development of Portland Place, where the Royal Institute of British Architects’ headquarters is a notable 20th-century insertion.  Other landmarks include Marylebone Parish Church, All Saints Margaret Street and All Souls Langham Place, and the vast, recently demolished Middlesex Hospital.  In addition to new photography, this volume includes meticulous architectural drawings and detailed coverage of the topography. Published in association with the Paul Mellon Centre and University College London

Cities for the New Millennium is the outcome of a joint conference held in Salford in July 2000 by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the University of Cambridge's Department of Architecture. It tackles these questions in the light of the Urban Task Force's report about the future of Britain's cities and communities, but sets them in an international and historical context. Professionals - architects, engineers and developers as well as academics from different countries and disciplines here lavish their expertise on issues of transportation, density, land use, risk and energy saving; others present urban-scale buildings or landscapes that have been judged inspirational or inventive. This book, therefore, is not just about theories of urbanism. It reveals how co-operation and debate between different parties and professions can illuminate the creative kind of urban development we should be aiming for.

The 20th edition of Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture is the first major work of history to include an overview of the architectural achievements of the 20th Century. Banister Fletcher has been the standard one volume architectural history for over 100 years and continues to give a concise and factual account of world architecture from the earliest times.In this twentieth and centenary edition, edited by Dan Cruickshank with three consultant editors and fourteen new contributors, chapters have been recast and expanded and a third of the text is new.* There are new chapters on the twentieth-century architecture of the Middle East (including Israel), South-east Asia, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, the Indian subcontinent, Russia and the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America. * The chapter on traditional architecture of India has been rewritten and the section on traditional Chinese architecture has been expanded, both with new specially commissioned drawings* The architecture of the Americas before 1900 has been enlarged to include, for the first time, detailed coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean* The book's scope has been widened to include more architecture from outside Europe* The bibliography has been expanded into a separate section and is a key source of information on every period of world architecture* The coverage of the 20th century architecture of North America has been divided into two chapters to allow fuller coverage of contemporary works* 20th century architecture of Western Europe has been radically recast* For the first time the architecture of the twentieth century is considered as a whole and assessed in an historical perspective* Coverage has been extended to include buildings completed during the last ten years* The coverage of Islamic architecture has been increased and re-organised to form a self contained sectionThis unique reference book places buildings in their social, cultural and historical settings to describe the main patterns of architectural development, from Prehistoric to the International Style. Again in the words of Sir Banister Fletcher, this book shows that 'Architecture ... provides a key to the habits, thoughts and aspirations of the people, and without a knowledge of this art the history of any period lacks that human interest with which it should be invested.'

Cities for the New Millennium is the outcome of a joint conference held in Salford in July 2000 by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the University of Cambridge's Department of Architecture. It tackles these questions in the light of the Urban Task Force's report about the future of Britain's cities and communities, but sets them in an international and historical context. Professionals - architects, engineers and developers as well as academics from different countries and disciplines here lavish their expertise on issues of transportation, density, land use, risk and energy saving; others present urban-scale buildings or landscapes that have been judged inspirational or inventive. This book, therefore, is not just about theories of urbanism. It reveals how co-operation and debate between different parties and professions can illuminate the creative kind of urban development we should be aiming for.

St Giles-in-the-Fields: History of a London Parish resurrects a neglected area of Central London, rich in history and incident. St Giles is at the centre of one of the greatest cities in the world – but you’ve probably never heard of it. But it is an area with a dense and tangled history that tells us a great deal about the experience of living in London across the span of time from the twelfth century to today. This history has rarely been glamorous, but it is packed with the stories of lives touched by many of the most momentous events in British history. St Giles began as a mediaeval leper hospital. After the Reformation it grew into one of London’s largest parishes, stretching east to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and north to Bedford Square and Bloomsbury. Aristocrats, poets, musicians, artists and lawyers lived here. St Giles was notorious too for its slums – notably the Rookery where Centre Point now stands. Its streets also boasted a hive of industry, printing, brewing and crafts. Later came music shops in Charing Cross Road and Denmark Street.  As its population dwindled, St Giles lost heart. But vitality returned from the 1970s, with the renaissance of nearby Covent Garden and the boom of office employment. Far more than a fringe part of Covent Garden, Soho or Bloomsbury, this book re-establishes the individuality of St Giles, centred on its noble and enduring Georgian parish church.

In May 1939, the celebrated American architect Frank Lloyd Wright visited London and gave four lectures at the Royal Institute of British Architects.  The meetings were hailed at the time as the most remarkable events of recent architectural affairs in England, and the lectures were published as An Organic Architecture in September 1939 by Lund Humphries. The texts remain an important expression of the architect’s core philosophy and are being reissued now in a new edition to commemorate the 150th anniversary in 2017 of Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth.In the lectures, Frank Lloyd Wright discusses several of his recent projects, including his Usonian houses, his homes and studios at Taliesin, Wisconsin and Arizona, Fallingwater and the Johnson administration building. His charismatic, flamboyant character and hugely creative intelligence leap to life from the pages as he looks to the ‘Future’, both in terms of the then-imminent Second World War and his vision for cities. This new edition includes an insightful new essay by esteemed architectural historian, Professor Andrew Saint, which sets the lectures within context and highlights their continued resonance and appeal.

This book conveys the excitement, diversity and richness of London at a time when the city was arguably at the height of its power, uniqueness and attraction. Balancing the social, the topographical and the visible aspects of the great city, author Andrew Saint uses buildings, architecture, literature and art as a way into understanding social and historical phenomena. While many volumes on Victorian London focus on poverty (an issue which is included in this book), the author here provides a broader picture of life in the city. It is enlivened with a rich line-up of colourful characters, including Baron Albert Grant; Henry Mayers Hyndman and his connections with Karl Marx, William Morris and George Bernard Shaw; John Burns; Octavia Hill; Aubrey Beardsley and the artistic bohemians; Alfred Harmsworth and the Garrett sisters, and includes insightful quotes on London by esteemed authors such as Trollope, Henry James and Rudyard Kipling.Divided into four long chapters, each dealing with a decade, London’s evolution between 1870 and 1914 comes across clearly. Although not intended to be a complete history, it does cover all the most important historical developments in London and London life.  Particular issues are allotted to the decade in which they seem to have been most critical. Topics covered include: the creation of new neighbourhoods and roads; how the Victorians dealt with their housing crisis; why certain architectural styles were preferred; and the fashion for focusing on certain types of building, such as ice rinks, schools, houses, hospitals, fire stations, exhibition halls, water works, music halls, recital rooms and pubs.This is an up-to-date, readable and well-illustrated book which embraces the whole in a positive spirit. Saint’s interpretation of London’s history in the period covered is unashamedly one of progress in the face of great odds. He shows that, in almost every aspect, it was a much better city in1914 than in 1870. At a time when local autonomy in Britain has been ruthlessly downgraded and London’s face is every year coarsened further by money-led developments, this story of gradual and earnest improvement may have lessons to teach.

As a subject, Waterloo Bridge fascinated writers and artists such as Dickens, Constable, Monet and Derain. This book tells the story of a bridge’s place in the city – its history in use, its inextricable connection with the great river which it crosses, and the character and activities of the two shores which it joins together. While focusing on Waterloo Bridge, the book also explores the evolution of the surrounding districts and the character of the Thames as it flows through Central London: tidal, wide, difficult to navigate and bridge, and intensely busy during its heyday. It sets Waterloo Bridge alongside the other London river bridges, revealing the complex politics and economics of bridge building.Full of fabulous characters and stories, the book takes us from the geology and ancient history to the history of the docks and on to the great bridge built in the 18th and 19th centuries. It reveals the complex politics and economics behind these bridges, who designed them and how they were constructed. The book explores how the surrounding districts evolved, the creation of the Thames embankments, and Waterloo bridge’s notoriety as a site for suicides – a subject that fascinated Dickens, Watts and Millais. It also reveals why it became a focus for artists such as Constable, Monet and Derain. It concludes with a poetic and honest description of the contemporary city.