John B. Hilling - Böcker

From its days as a small and relatively insignificant regional town, through its growing prominence in the early nineteenth century as a major port for the export of coal from South Wales, to its current status as national capital and major tourist centre, Cardiff has a proud and distinctive identity. This extraordinary history is embodied in the buildings that have shaped the city. Cardiff in 50 Buildings explores the history of this rich and vibrant community through a selection of its greatest architectural treasures. From the Victorian Coal Exchange to the Senedd building and the Welsh Millennium Centre arts complex, part of the twenty-first-century Cardiff Bay waterfront development, this study celebrates the city’s architectural heritage in a new and accessible way. Author and historian John B. Hilling guides the reader on a tour of the city’s historic buildings and modern architectural marvels, accompanied by beautiful full-colour images from David A. L. Hilling.

Cardiff’s civic centre in Cathays Park, described as the finest civic centre in the British Isles, is an impressive planned group of public buildings, begun largely with wealth created by the coal industry in the south Wales coalfield. This book covers the Cardiff site’s earlier evolution as a private park in the nineteenth century by the fabulously rich Bute family, and the borough’s battles to obtain land for public buildings and the park’s development in the twentieth century, to become Britain’s finest civic centre. All the buildings, memorials and statues in the park are fully described and illustrated in this book which includes maps, plans and photographs. The History and Architecture of Cardiff Civic Centre is the first in the series Architecture of Wales, published in partnership with the Royal Society of Architects in Wales.