Patrick Bade
19th Century Architecture

Patrick Bade | 19th Century Architecture | 07.18.21

- Morning, morning to everybody. Good morning, good afternoon on this lovely sunny day in New York. So, Patrick, whenever you are ready, over to you.

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

• Thank you, Wendy. I’m hoping it’s all going to work. We’ve had a few internet problems here in Paris today, but we’ll just hope the best, right? The image that you see is of the Bastille in Paris. That was of course the French equivalent of the Tower of London, I’m sure you all know. On the 14th of July, we just celebrated it here, the Bastille was stormed by a Parisian mob, and that’s what started the French Revolution. French Revolution, Brits tend to be a bit ambivalent towards it. I think on the whole, we have to say it is one of certainly one of the decisive events of Western history, and I think on the whole, it was a good one. I mean, the world changed. It could never be the same again. And I think it largely changed for the better.

But of course, there were dark sides to the French Revolution, and it unleashed an absolute orgy of destruction. What you are seeing here in this picture is actually not the storming of the Bastille, it’s the demolition of the Bastille. And there’s a kind of frenzy of destructive energy resulting from the revolution with a terrible loss actually to Europe’s architectural heritage. It was far worse in France and countries surrounding France that were conquered by France than it was, say, in England under Henry VIII. So, you know, all around France, you see these ruins of mediaeval buildings.

This is the great monastery Jumièges in Normandy. And strangely, this destruction goes hand in hand with a very quickened, far intenser sense of history. And I think there are various possible explanations for this. One is that I think that, you know, these were exciting times. Things were changing. I think that gave people a sense of history. And also the destructions, also the industrial revolution. And it’s also part of romanticism that people are intensely interested in the past. The image you see here on the left, that’s Walter Scott, and he is the inventor of a new literary form that’s the historical novel from 1859, which is the so-called Waverly novel, and he’s recreating very vividly different historical periods.

Top is the Bride of Lammermoor which is more famous today in Donizetti’s opera, which is set in the 17th century, and bottom right is “Ivanhoe,” which is set in the Middle Ages, and the image on the front is a painting by Delacroix inspired by the novel. And from this time onwards through the 19th century, we have many, many painters at the Salon in Paris, we’re talking about that next week, and the Royal Academy in London, who are painting the past in a way that artists had never done before. I mean, of course there are plenty of renaissance or Baroque paintings that are set in the ancient world or the Middle Ages, but they, you know, Rubens, he painted all his women in the costume of the day whatever the period of the subject.

But now we have artists like this is very famous to all English people, “When Did You Last See Your Father,” which is a narrative painting set in the English Civil War. And so the artist Jameses has gone to enormous trouble to get the costumes right, to get the furniture right. And Alma Tadama, bottom left, he’s recreating the Athens of Pericles and he’s taking advantage of new archaeological discoveries and knowledge to recreate everything as historically accurately as possible. And so there’s also a new attitude towards the architecture of the past.

This is Cologne Cathedral, which is the biggest mediaeval cathedral in the world. It was a huge, huge structure built, of course, over centuries, but abandoned after the Reformation in the 16th century and left in really a fragmentary state. And so around about 1800, at the end of the 18th century, there were plans actually to demolish the whole thing. And, you know, to build a nice new, shiny, modern, neoclassical church. And then somebody came across, it’s an amazing discovery. In the archives there, they came across the plans for the completion of the cathedral.

So from the 1840s onwards, there was a huge effort to finish off the cathedral to its original plans. And there are many, many other examples in Europe of mediaeval buildings being restored or recreated. This is Carcassonne in the southwest of France, where the walls had fallen actually into ruin by the middle of the 19th century. And the architect, Viollet-le-Duc, who you see top right, he reconstructed these walls. And so, I mean, it is simply amazing. It’s absolutely staggering if you go to Carcassonne. A very fascinating place. But it is slightly Disneyland, as is this.

This is the castle of Pierre Font, which again, in the 19th century had fallen into ruins and was reconstructed by Viollet-le-Duc. And we have, these things happen all over Europe. This is Castle Koch. Again, a real mediaeval castle that became a ruining and was recreated as with as much historical accuracy as possible by the architect Burgess. So this accuracy, informed by historical knowledge is a new thing in the 19th century. This is the interior of Strawberry Hill just outside London. And that was built in the 18th century by Horace Walpole. And it’s, you know, cited in all the architectural books as one of the first examples of gothic revival. But it was not an informed revival at all. He’s just taken the fan vaulting. It’s not real fan vaulting, it’s made out of plaster. It’s imitating the fan vaulting in the Henry VII Chapel.

So he’s just puts lots of frilly gothic decoration. This is basically a long gallery that you might find in any English country house for the display or pictures, you know, you might find it in a Palladian house. And actually here on the left, you can see a Palladian table with classical busts on. Nothing very gothic about the furniture. So it’s a very, this is what architectural historians call gothic with a K on the end. So this is not at all interested in the basic constructional principles of gothic architecture. He’s just using gothic as an exotic form of decoration, exactly as Nash and George IV did in the Brighton Pavilion. No real knowledge of course, of Chinese art or architecture. You’re just using it for decorative effect. So I’m giving you all this background really, because the title of this lecture that you’ve been given is 19th century architecture.

The original title of this lecture when I first gave it was historicist, “19th Century Historicist Architecture,” rather. Oh God, that’s such a mouthful. And it’s quite off-putting. But the point is that for between say 1830 and 1890, there is hardly a single major building in Europe that is not in some kind of historical revival style. So my 19th century actually is the period I’m covering today, and we’ll see how far I get with it, is 1830 to 1890. Here we are actually just before that. This is the beginning of the 19th century. And this is the German architect Schinkel. And this was a project for a cathedral. But as you can see, he’s offered alternative designs. You can have a classical one with a dome and a temple, a portico at the front, and everything very symmetrical and correctly classical, or if you want, you can have the same cathedral.

Well, it will, you know, more or less the same proportions, but in a gothic style. And probably the first city in Europe to lead the way for this kind of historicism is Munich. And there are very specific reasons for that that I’ll get to in a minute, but well, I’ll tell you now. Munich was a new kingdom, was actually Napoleon who gave the Elector of Bavaria the title of King of Bavaria. And because the Bavarians were smart in the Napoleonic Wars, they supported Napoleon while the going was good, and as immediately it became obvious that he was going to be defeated, the Bavarians swapped sides, which meant that at the Congress of Vienna, they were able to keep, King of Bavarian was able to keep his status.

Although the Wittelsbachs were in ancient family going back to the Middle Ages, in a sense they were nouveau kings and they needed to prove themselves. And Ludwig I was very interesting culture, and he wanted to make Munich into an important cultural capital. He wanted to make it into the Athens of the north or the Florence of the North. So huge building programmes undertaken to expand and glorify Munich, and nearly all the buildings built for Ludwig I were in, they were either referring to Renaissance Florence or to classical Athens. And here are three designs by his favourite architect, Leo von Klenze, lots of names, lots of dates on my list for you today that you should have got with the PowerPoint.

But yes, this is Leo von Klenze, and he produced three alternative designs for the Glyptothek, the great museum of sculpture in Munich. One was Roman, one is sort of, well it’s not very Roman, one is classical, and the bottom one, which was actually built, is meant to be Greek. Not terribly accurate, any of them, actually. But this is what the Königsplatz looks like in Munich, was later picked up, very sinister and terrible associations because it was really a theatre for Nazi pageants and so on. It all became that, wasn’t intended as that. But you can see that this is Ludwig I. And Leo von Klenze was staking a claim for Munich to be the Athens of the North.

It also staked a claim for it to be the Florence with the Feldherrnhalle that you see, another building of course, that picked up very unfortunate associations with Hitler and his 1923 push, for instance. And you can see that the Feldherrnhalle is almost a direct copy of the Lloge de Lanci from Florence top left. And this is the new wing of the residence. The great palace of the Wittelsbach goes back to the 16th century. What you see here is 19th century, and again, almost a copy of the Pitti Palace in Florence. But it’s really Vienna, that is the greatest example, that offers the greatest example of historicist architecture.

Vienna was surrounded by great mediaeval walls, paid for, I might say, by the British taxpayer, because it was money that was paid to ransom Richard Leonhardt, who has foolishly allowed himself to be captured by the Austrians on the way home from the Crusades. Good investment. I would say, you know, sometimes it is a very good investment, you know, for the Brits, I would say, to invest in Europe in their own interest, because those walls saved Vienna twice from the Turks. And of course, if the Turks had taken Vienna, they would’ve been all over Europe. Napoleon was able to take the city despite the walls, and it was obvious that they were militarily useless by the middle of the 19th century.

So one of the first things that Kaiser Franz Joseph did was to issue an order for the demolition of the mediaeval walls of the city. And instead to construct a series of boulevards that encircle the old city of Vienna. This is the famous Ringstrasse. and I would like to describe the Ringstrasse as the greatest architectural fancy dress ball in the world. Got these huge, monumental public buildings, all in different historical styles. In this aerial photograph, you can see top right is the Portificia, that’s gothic. You can see the lighthouse, the town hall, that’s also gothic. And you can see the national theatre, the Burgtheater, which is in a kind of Renaissance Baroque style.

Probably the most important building in Vienna, at least as far as the Viennese are concerned, is the Opera House. That was of course the Imperial opera, now it’s the state opera of Vienna. So, you know, the Viennese are absolutely addicted to operas. So important to them. And in a way, the man who’s in charge of the Vienna Opera is, you know, as famous or as important as the president or prime minister or whatever. So it was the first building on the Ringstrasse to be completed. And in one way that was slightly unfortunate, because eventually the street level landed up higher, I think, than originally envisaged. And that I think that partly accounts for the very odd proportions of this building. It’s a rather squat looking building.

I have to say, I don’t love it. I mean, I think, well, the Paris Opera is infinitely more magnificent, and so is of course the Budapest Opera. Now that’s a real, real masterpiece. I may not get to it in this lecture, but I will talk about it with you at some point, maybe in the context of Budapest. Anyway, when this was the first building finished, the emperor Franz Joseph looked at it and he said, “looks to me like somebody sat on it.”

This was completely devastating to the two architects, Eduard van der Nüll and August Sicard von Sicardsburg, who you see top right. One of them, I can’t remember which, was so distressed by the emperor’s comment that he shot himself and the other one had a heart attack. They say, I don’t know if it’s true, that thereafter Franz Joseph never offered any opinion on any building or work of art. And we always say about everything very nice, it pleased me.

So here is what you find on the Ringstrasse and elsewhere in Europe is that architects will choose what they think is the appropriate style for the purpose of the building. Burgtheater is theatre. So clearly, Renaissance and Baroque is the appropriate style. This is is by an architect called Teflo Hansen. This is the parliament building on the Ringstrasse. Parliament, democracy. Well, Habsburg Empire was making tentative moves towards democracy. Democracy is a Greek invention, so let’s have a classical Greek building for our parliament building. Churches, religion, especially Catholic churches, people, the obvious choice was gothic.

So Tifia in Vienna, on the Ringstrasse are on the left and on the right is Sainte Clotilde which is in Paris, which was the church where Cesar Franck was the organist. Very often there would be, you know, for these big buildings in the 19th century, you would have competitions. And sometimes, you know, according to the nature of the building, the historical style would be stipulated in the competition rules. This is the Nikolai Kirche under construction in Hamburg. And this is how it looked before its near total destruction in the Second World War.

The tower still exists. So this was an international competition and rather surprisingly, it wasn’t a German who won the commission, it was our own George Gilbert Scott, the architect of St Pancreas Station. Museums tend to be Renaissance style, this is Semper and Harrison Cleaver, the Constastorche Museum on the left, and the two images on the right, this is Klentzer again, working in what he thinks of as a renaissance style for the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Town Halls, as I’ve said, well, town halls in a way, you’ve got two alternatives as a style for town halls.

The great period of town halls in northern France and the Netherlands was 15th, 16th century. So here we’ve got the Munich Town Hall and the Vienna Town hall, both in the gothic style. And here we have the Hamburg Town Hall top left and the Paris Hotel De Ville, which was built after the destruction of the original 16th century one, in the 16th century Hotel De Ville that was destroyed in the Paris Commune of 1871, Opera houses, well, of course, they have to be really Baroque wherever they are. So these are two opera houses in very exotic places.

The one on the left is in San Paulo in Brazil. And one top writers is in Hanoi, built by the French. And probably the most exquisite, lavish, and amazing of these Neo Baroque opera houses is the Small Allegagnier, the little opera house in Montecarlo. Now classicism kept up, you know, which was dominant in the late 18th, early 19th century, the classicist architects kept up a rear guard fight for what they believed was the right style. And this is a very, very related example, it’s the absolute last gasp you could say of Neo Classicism.

This is the Stock Exchange in Brussels. Another one of the problems with classical style building with a portico and impediment, it’s base, it should be quite a severe style, but severe was not what the mid to late 19th century wanted. They wanted lavish and they wanted lots of ornament and they wanted lots and lots of sculptural decoration. Now if you think of a Greek temple, think of the Parthenon. There are only certain places on the building really where sculptures can be put. And mainly in that rather awkward triangular space of the impediment over the columns.

So you can see this is an architect trying to have his cake and eat it. He’s trying to give you a classical temple, but the whole thing is groaning with far too much sculptural decoration. So I think this tended to favour Gothic, Renaissance and eventually Baroque styles, ‘cause they’re all styles where a lot of sculptural decoration on the facade is really integral to the design. This is certainly one of the most influential buildings of the 19th century.

Under Napoleon III, there were plans to unite the two great palaces of the Louvre and the Tuileries. And for a very short time that actually happened. It was certainly the largest palace complex in the world with the Tuilerie and the Louvre and all this stuff in between. What we’re looking at here is built under Louis Napoleon by an architectural team called Leftwell and Visconti. And it’s in a French Renaissance style, which fits in well with, with which fitted in well with the Tuilerie before its destruction in 1871.

So Paris is of course the cultural capital of the western world. Anybody interested in art, in culture, is drawn like a magnet to Paris. And so this building, you know, all the architects of in the world who aspired to an international reputation would’ve come to Paris to study this building. And all over America, one of these buildings is Boston and one is New York, and I can’t remember which is which. One is a post office and the other one is a town hall. Anyway, lots of listeners will know, but it’s very obvious that the inspiration is the new wing of the Louvre. Now, one of the most extraordinary examples of this increasing taste for lavish ornamentation is the Dresden Opera by Zemper And he built it twice.

The first time was I think in the 1830s, which you see top left, and then there was a disastrous fire. It was completely burnt down and he was still alive and very famous and they came back to him to rebuild it. Instead of just rebuilding it as it was, you can see it’s become much, much more lavish and heavily ornamented. So showy, I think I mentioned this really, and I can’t remember which one of the two historical introductions. In the 19th century, if you are rich, you want to display that wealth. Not only individuals, but cities, governments.

This monster, which completely dominates the skyline of Brussels, it’s one of the highest point in Brussels. Absolutely enormous building. It’s the Palais du Justice. And law courts, central law courts of Belgium. So Belgium, another new country in a sense, of course, a very ancient country, but a new country in that it was only created as an independent kingdom in 1831. And incredibly successful. Belgium was the second country in the world to fully industrialise after Britain and was very, very rich indeed.

And so, again, this is a building where there was a competition and this was announced by the mayor of Brussels. And in his speech he said, “I want this building to be and to look as expensive as possible.” You know, I can’t even imagine Boris Johnson having a chutzpah to say something like that, that he’s wants to commission a building that would cost the taxpayer as much money as possible. But this was obviously considered a vote winner. In 19th century Belgian, they were going to have the most expensive law courts in the world. And here, can you imagine, oh my god, if you’re going in to get your divorce heard or you know, be put on trial, this building would certainly make you feel very small when you enter it.

And two more sort of wedding cake, totally over the top buildings, again intended to be as lavish, both buildings resulting again from competitions, there is Berlin Cathedral, top right, and the Reichstag, bottom left. So this lavishness also goes with another theme that I emphasised in my last talk to you, which is the growth of nationalism and patriotism in the 19th century. So people are referring back to history, but usually they’re referring back to their own history in order to reinforce this sense of national and patriotic identity. The image that we have here is of the Rue de Nation, the street of nations.

And this is from the Paris welfare of 1900. And all the countries who erected pavilions in this fair, they did so in historical styles of their own country. So it’s the Belgian Gothic one, one’s the first on the left, and I think it’s followed by the Finnish one after that, and then the Czech one and so on. So each country producing a building in a national historical style. And this was sometimes again stipulated in competition rules. This is the Reichs Museum, of course, for the Dutch, very, very important museum, you know, Dutch painting being, you know, up there with the Italians, with some of the greatest painters. And it’s very much a matter of pride for the Dutch and a matter of, again, national identity.

So this building is in a Dutch Renaissance style. So, there was of course a very famous competition for the House of Parliament after they burnt down in the 1830s. And again, in the rules it said they wanted the new House of Parliament to be in a national style. And that that national style should be either gothic or Elizabethean. Actually Elizabethean would’ve been a national style. 'Cause Elizabeth, which is really a kind of fusion of gothic and Renaissance is something that is unique to England. I don’t think you don’t even find it in Scotland. Gothic, I must say that’s, you know, gothic, I’m sorry to say, is a French invention.

You know, the Brits like to think they invented it and the Germans like to think they invented it, and in both countries, actually, in the 19th century, they adopted the Gothic style partly out of anti-French feeling, because by that time, French were particularly, you know, Napoleonic France was associated with classicism. So by choosing to build this House of Parliament in this perpendicular Gothic style, I suppose perpendicular you could say is a variety of gothic that you really only find in Britain. And it’s very different from the Gothic or French Gothic of the 15th century. And so bizarrely, and of course 19th century, as I explained last time pretty well, the rest of the globe is dominated by European nations.

Certainly the whole of Africa, much of Asia, and wherever the Europeans went, they took their national historical style. So this is Bombay University, very weird really, to see this rather heavy Gothic style from northern Europe surrounded by palm trees. And how about this? My god, I’d love to see this. It really is amazing. It makes St Pancreas look quite modest. This is actually the central railway station in Calcutta, biggest railway station in India. I mean, there are a lot of things to be said about the Brits in India. Most of them not really very positive, but the two things, if people want to defend the British role in India, the two things that they mention are of course the language, that English is the common language of India, and the railway system.

Those are the two things that helped to unite India. And see, a very popular style, pretty well everywhere actually was the Loire Chateau. It’s a French Renaissance style. This is what is the type, what is the name of this place? Put it on my list, but this is a 19th century French chateau in the style of 16th century, early 16th century Loire chateau. This is Biltmore in America, but a French Loire chateau. This is Worcester in England. So you can find the Loire style and the French Renaissance style was also very adaptable. This is Whitehall Court in London. So this is a complex of apartments and offices, but looks from the outside as though it’s a French Renaissance chateau.

And this is really quite, quite the monster. This is Royal Holloway College, which is more or less, well it’s based on the Chateau of Chambord but like twice over, it’s like double the size of the Chateau of Chambord. So I’ve mentioned all these different historical styles that are very popular, but increasingly in the second half of the century you get a mixture of styles, eclecticism. So I mean what on earth, how on earth would you describe this church here? La Trinite. That’s a church, I mean, I very often take people to it. Not that I think it’s particularly beautiful, it’s kind of a monstrosity by an architect called Ballu.

So you’ve got everything here. You’ve got, you know, classical elements, you’ve got rose windows, it’s a real hodgepodge of a style. I mean there are various reasons I take people to it. It’s more for the things near it. Incidentally, also the best chocolate shop in Paris. I always used to use that to bribe my students. I say if you keep up and you behave very well, I’ll allow you time to go into the chocolate shop next to La Trinite. You walk in and the chocolate fumes, 'cause they make the chocolate on the premises, are so in, you know, you almost keel over from toxic shock from the chocolate.

Anyway, that church was the famous, that was the favourite church of the Empress Eugenie. She liked to go to mass in that church. And the story is that the synagogue you see on the right hand side, which is the biggest synagogue in Paris, it’s the Rue de Victoire, and it had to be shoved down the side street. They were built more or less the same time and or at least the synagogue was built shortly afterwards, and it faces the wrong direction for a synagogue, but that was at the demand of Empress Eugenie who did not want to be offended by the site of a large synagogue on the way to mass on Sunday.

Now my next theme is materials. So historicism is one major element in 19th century architecture. And the other major element, which was more interesting, I suppose, to 20th century architects and designers was the use of new industrial materials and techniques. This is the famous Iron Bridge. This is the first really major cast iron structure in the world, and it dates from 1781, and it is a portent of what was to come. Here are the Albert Docks in Liverpool at the end of the Second World War, and you can see the war damage since repaired. But because all all the outer walls here have, you know, they’ve been demolished by bombs, you can see the building is still standing.

So because those outer walls are not actually supporting the building. The building, the outer walls in a way are hanging on a cast iron skeleton, which actually holds up the building. And this becomes quite common, but initially, as here, architects were rather coy about the use of cast iron structures. This is actually right at the end. This is in past the end of the period, 'cause this is 1905. This is the Ritz Hotel in London. And this is the first building in London, which is constructed around the skeleton, not of cast iron, but actually of steel. And that was a technique that was developed in the United States towards the end of the 19th century. Palm houses play a very big role in the development of metal glass for building purposes. This may be the very first.

This is in Munich at the Palace of Nymphenburg, and it dates right back to 1808. This very important and influential, sadly doesn’t exist anymore, it was demolished in the 1920s. This is the palm house that was designed for the Duke of Devonshire by his head gardener, Joseph Paxton. And so he’s developing this technique of mass produced, industrially created elements of glass. There were new techniques for making larger sheets of glass in the 19th century and combining them with iron. So this is 1836, this is about a decade later. This is the Palm House at Kew Gardens. These are the fabulous palm houses at Larkin on the outskirts of Brussels. But this of course is the apotheosis of glass and iron architecture.

This is the Crystal Palace that was constructed for the first ever world exhibition, which was held in London in 1851, right? And as I said last time, this was really the absolute peak, the high point of British prestige and power. They had this idea, it was really Prince Albert’s idea of, you know, celebrating this and inviting all the other nations of the world to come and celebrate British hegemony and supremacy. Incredible arrogance really. And a typical British cockup it very nearly became, because it got to I think something like 18 months before the opening of the exhibition, and they still hadn’t decided on a design for the exhibition building. And it was too late actually. It was really too late. 18 months was not enough to build on this scale by conventional means.

So I think they’re getting a bit desperate about this. So one of the people who was at this meeting and who was on the committee was Joseph Paxton. And he of course had experience of building palm houses and he was also on the board of the Midland Railway Company. So he had this brilliant idea and it’s wonderful. We have this sheet of paper where he actually doodled and drew his idea for a vast exhibition building that could be made very quickly, 'cause it’s completely constructed out of, what’s the proper word for it? Pre prefabricated industrial elements. And this is what it looked like inside. The famous trees, 'cause it was constructed in Hyde. This is the how it was rebuilt in Sydnam, in South London.

This is how it looked in Hyde Park. And this of course recalls the famous story of the trees that, you know, they didn’t want to destroy the trees in Hyde Park so they built the whole thing around the trees and then another, you know, shitting bricks moment because the trees were full of sparrows and birds. And of course, as I know, 'cause I used to have a bird as a pet, when you get birds, you have a lot of bird shit. And they thought, what are we going to do? You know, it’s going to be so embarrassing.

All these people coming from all over the world with their exquisite exhibits and they’re all going to be covered in bird shit. And so they really went into a kind of panic. And it was actually the Duke of Wellington, very old by this time, shortly for his death, he came up with the, with the solution of sparrow hawks. And I’m afraid all the sparrows came to a sad end through the sparrow hawks. So Crystal Palace, one of the most, just a moment of genius, really, an incredible invention. And one of the most influential buildings in modern architecture.

The Emperor Louis Napoleon came to London to visit the great exhibition. He was very impressed by it, 'cause he puts on his own great exhibition in 1855. But he was also impressed by the Crystal Palace. So the French architect Baltar was commissioned to create, this is part of the whole modernization of Paris under Houseman to create the Hall using the same methods, of course, as the crystal palace of prefabricated glass and iron. So interestingly, Viollet-le-Duc, I’ve always mentioned, of course, for his restoration and reconstruction of mediaeval buildings, and he also, he was unlike Strawberry Hill, whereas, you know, the architects were just interested in the decorative aspects of gothic, Viollet-le-Duc was interested in the constructional aspects of gothic.

In some ways it’s a very functional style. In gothic, unlike classical architecture, the constructional and functional elements in gothic, you know, the ribs, the vaults, the buttresses, and so on are conspicuous. They’re visible. They’re actually made a feature of. And this was something that interested Viollet-le-Duc. And he thought, well, let’s not hide the metal elements in modern buildings. Let’s make a feature of them as they are in mediaeval buildings. And these are designs by Viollet-le-Duc. Shopping malls and galleries. Of course, they’re what we find 19th century galleries all over, there are dozens of them in Paris. They’re wonderful. You can do a whole day walking around the Passage of Paris.

In Britain, Leeds has a whole system of them. There are a few in London, not so spectacular. This is the Galerie Saint-Hubert in Brussels. And it dates from the 1840s. And it’s probably the first of these galleries where you have the idea actually of an inside out Renaissance palace. You’ve got to the either side, it looks like facades of a renaissance palace with a railway station lid put on the top of it. And this of course is developed in other famous passages or galleries. One in Berlin on the right hand side, destroyed in the Second World War. One on the left, of course is the Galleria in a wonderful thrilling building.

Here where you can see very clearly the idea of these palaces inside out with railway sheds, roofs on top. Here’s a real railway shed. This is St. Pancreas. I should be going back through that with any luck in about two weeks time on my return to Britain. When this was constructed, this was the largest unsupported span of any building in the world. And it was considered to be a kind of wonder of the world. And it held that distinction for a couple of decades until this was built. This is the Galerie Des Machines, which is even bigger. And this was built for the Paris World Exhibition of 1889.

Here is the interior of it. And of course also for that exhibition, perhaps the most famous cast iron construction of the 19th century or ever, the Eiffel Tower, Gustav Eiffel, here it is being built in 1888. And of course there is another Eiffel Tower, which is inside the Statue of Liberty. So think of that next time you see the Statue of Liberty towering over the entrance in New York. I’m just showing you this to show you what you can do with iron and also cause I really love this building. It’s in the Jardin des Plant, which is like the Kew Gardens of Paris. It’s at the end of them. It’s not really very visited except sometimes by school children, parties of school children.

But from the outside it’s actually a very plain classical looking building. And when you walk in, you gasp. It’s a whole museum inspired by Darwin. It’s a museum of evolution. And you have skeletons of every kind of creature. At the front, you have an ecrochet, that’s a flayed figure of a man. And so you walk into this building and it’s just like the whole of evolution is marching towards you. The building itself is wonderful where you can see that, you know, it’s all cast iron. And the cast iron is inspired either by plants or animal skeletons. Absolutely amazing, amazing building. Now how we for time?

So well, you’ve got this battle of the stars in the 19th century, and it’s actually at it’s most intense, I would say, in Britain. And the greatest proponent of Gothic, Neo-gothic was Augustus Welby Pugin, and he really announced the battle with a book that he published in 1841 called “Contrasts” in which he illustrates an imaginary British city, how it was in 1440 and how it is in 1840. As far as he’s concerned, he’s a Catholic at a time when the Catholic worship had only just been legalised in Britain. So that made him a bit of an outsider. But he was very, of course he thought the Reformation had been a disaster, and he thought the industrial revolution had been a disaster. And so he’s looking back to the Middle Ages as a kind of ideal time of harmony between man and nature and harmony socially.

You know, he sees the capitalism and the industrial revolution as being very evil, destructive. He’s very concerned about pollution. I mean, some of his ideas are really very modern and have been very influential, but you can see the city bottom left, with its beautiful churches, everything beautiful, and at the top, you know, factory chimneys, pollution. And then on the right you’ve got how the poor were treated in the Middle Ages. I doubt what it was quite as wonderful as he said it was, and how they’re treated in a poor house in the 19th century, put into a kind of factory building. He is probably most famous for his contribution to the Houses of Parliament. As I said, there was a competition and, gosh, I’m trying to think of the other architect of the House of the Parliament.

Yeah, Charles Barry. Charles Barry is actually responsible for the planning of the building. Barry was a Renaissance specialist, and he had to take on Pugin because he really didn’t understand all the Gothic detail. But Pugin did not approve of the building as it was finally constructed, 'cause you can see from this angle that actually it’s completely symmetrical as a Renaissance palace would be, apart from the two towers. That facade, the river’s front facade is actually a renaissance palace facade with gothic detail applied to it. So it’s all this wonderful detailed decoration, this is inside the House of Lords, that is down to Pugin.

Now, the most notorious battle in the war of the styles concerned the foreign office built on Whitehall. Think Whitehall, you know, at the time, the British Empire had a quarter of the globe was ruled by the Brits. Incredibly powerful. So this was a building that was intended to express power. And it was, again, there was a competition. At this time, I don’t think there was any particular style that was stipulated. But in fact, the person who won the competition didn’t win the commission. I’m not sure who that was. But through a certain political influence and skullduggery, it was George Gilbert Scott who won the competition with this design you see here.

But the matter of style had actually become apolitical issue, as you might expect. The conservatives, the tourists, they liked mediaeval architecture. They favoured Gothic. So actually, he got the commission for the building when there was a conservative government. The conservative government fell and Palmerston took over and he was a liberal, and the liberals didn’t like gothic or mediaeval and all the associations of monarchism and religion and hierarchy and so on that went with it. So he didn’t take the commission away from George Gilbert Scott.

He just said to him, “I’m sorry, you’ve got to go back to the drawing board. I don’t want this. I don’t want anything gothic. I want something Renaissance or classical.” And so through gritted teeth, Scotts went back and he redesigned this rather unconvincing Renaissance’s building. I mean, it’s often said that, I mean, you know, cause he was enraged by this. He was absolutely furious. And it’s often said he took out his frustrations on his next great commission, which was St. Pancreas Station.

In fact, I mean, they’re not the same as you can see, they’re quite different, but it’s certainly a very exuberant and amazing and wonderful building. But he of course only designed the hotel, the Midland Hotel. And the Shed was designed by engineers and is completely different. So the hotel is really like a piece of opera scenery in front of the shed of the station. Here’s the inside. Going to move on, I think. How are we doing for time? We’re really running out of time. So actually I’m going to stop now.

And the main things that I haven’t covered are Paris of Houseman, Budapest, which is the most fabulous city for historicist architecture, and the Ludwig castles. But all three of those I can cover in different contexts, in other lectures. Certainly, I mean, when I first started doing these lectures, I think in the spring of last year, I did one on Paris of Houseman. And no doubt I’ll get back to it. And I would love to do a talk on Budapest.

Trudy and I are thinking of doing more city lectures in the autumn. And the Ludwig castles could come into one of those as well.

So now I’m going to come out of all of this and stop share. And chat. Where is chat? Is it Q and A? Is that what I have to?

• [Trudy] Yes, Q and A.

Q&A and Comments

• Right, good. Now I was going to talk, as I said, about Budapest. I can see somebody’s saying Budapest has something of a copy. People always say that. It’s not true. Budapest is not, it’s a fantastic building. It’s most amazing building. Actually in some ways it makes the British House a Parliament look quite impoverished. I mean, it runs along a river and it’s in a basically gothic style. That’s the only thing. It’s a highly original, really extraordinary, amazing building. I can’t emphasise that enough. I think it’s not fair to say that it’s even something of a copy.

Q: Where is the Iron Bridge constructed? A: Ironbridge. It’s a place. It’s in the north of England. I can’t tell you exactly where it is. I’m sure you could look it up and find out.

Maryanne. Yes, my friend Maryanne. She’s saying, yes, it’s perfectly true. You know, they have this, that Messiaen was the organist in La Trinite. The Paris churches again, I hope I’m going to do lots and lots and lots of Paris trips with many of you. But the Paris churches have the greatest organs in the world. You know, there was this firm called Cavalier Cole. They produced these monster amazing, amazing organs. And they had this rather good system in Paris in the 19th century where composers would, as a sinecure, you were paid, you know, a modest income and maybe once a month you had to turn up in the church and you had to play the organ.

So, nearly all the 19th century great French composers of, you know, Cesar Franc, Foret, Cesant, and so on had these sinecures and Messiaen was the official organist, I mean, for a period of over half a century. I’m really sorry I never did it, because, you know, you could have just turned up for mass at La Trinite and heard Messiaen playing the organ.

Actually, the Crystal Palace wasn’t demolished. I think it was never intended to be permanent, but it was such a success, they dismantled it, and it was reconstructed in South London and it burnt down in 1936. Amazingly, you wouldn’t think that buildings made of iron and glass were particularly flammable, but they nearly all turned out to be with a whole series of terrible fires of these big iron and glass buildings. They were really actually terrible fire hazards. Lovely iron and glass building in Edinburgh for National Scottish Museum. Thank you.

Again, where is the first iron bridge? The place is called Ironbridge, probably after the bridge, I suppose.

Budapest, yes. Budapest is a relatively recent discovery for me. I’ve only been there four times, but I absolutely love it. A bit put off a moment by their horrible, nasty, antisemitic, homophobic government. In Budapest, well, of course there is the Great Synagogue, which is a masterpiece. A very, very beautiful building. Very moving building and lucky it survived the Second World War and it’s been wonderfully refurbished. Yeah, I’m sure they wanted to outdo the Brits and as far as I’m concerned, they succeeded. It’s a fantastic building to do a tour of.

Q: In classical style architecture, do they always use Corinthian style columns? A: No, you know, there are the different classical orders and Corinthian is the most lavish. So no, in the 19th century, they tended to use Corinthian order just because it is the most elaborate. But if you could go back into the earlier neoclassical period, you’ll find of, you know, Doric or, you know, the simpler orders were often used as well.

What do you think of the design and architecture, I don’t know it actually, to tell you the truth. I have been to Washington, but I don’t think I’ve been to the, I haven’t been to the House of Congress yet.

Yeah, Budapest, I’m very keen to a tour on.

Q: How did architects negotiate need for modernism with that? A: Yes, they did. You know, there are very, very interesting compromises. And actually another place of course where you must, must go when you come to Paris is the Musee Camondo. And a few years ago they opened up all of the kitchens and the servants part. And that’s very interesting. 'Cause I mean, the Musee Camondo is an imitation of a Louis XVI building, but super modern as far as, you know, lifts and you know, kitchens and bathrooms and all that kind of thing. And of course famously Ludwig II, Neuschwanstein had absolutely the latest modern conveniences. But Penn stations of glorious glass and iron structure that were so cruelly demolished. Yes, you see pictures of it. That really was a crime. That was a crime. It looked absolutely amazing from the photographs of it.

Somebody saying they live for several months in the Passage Choiseul built in 1826. Yes, lucky you. Actually, I would recommend to anybody going to Paris is in the Passage du Fois. It’s called, easy to remember, it’s the Hotel Chopin. Very small. And the lovely thing about living in a passage, of course, is there’s no street noise, no traffic, which is quite rare in Paris.

The problem with the bird poo was solved by hawks, sparrow hawks.

Shropshire, of course the iron bridge is in Shropshire. Yes. Thank you, more people saying that.

Q: Where is the Museum of Evolution? A: It’s in Paris, in the Jardin des Plantes, the Garden of Plants, which is like the Kew Gardens, which is really a lovely place to visit when you come to Paris in any case.

It was the Duke of Wellington who recommended the sparrow hawks.

Q: Do you ever lecture outside London in England? A: Occasionally. I don’t have a car. I’m not very 21st century, you know. So it has to be a place I can actually get to.

Music Armando. Yeah, it’s funny. Music Armando, I love going there. I find it a very, very moving place even though it’s not really my taste.

Although Louise says, if you really want, my friend Robin Miller who did a talk, and that would be what a treat. If you could persuade Robin to come over and take you around Musee Camondo, that would be a fabulous thing. And I’ll hang on her coattails.

Friday evening service in the Dahoni is amazing. But yeah. It’s funny, I’ve been to so many synagogues, of course, but I’ve never actually been to a mosque.

Bohemia. Well, wonderful. And yeah, I think that that’s such a wonderful part of the world.

Yeah, I could have mentioned the Orsee, of course. Again, built for the 1900 World Exhibition. And I think that’s it. Thank you all very much for your questions and-

• Thank you Patrick. That was excellent. Absolutely wonderful. Have you never visited a mosque?

• No, I haven’t. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t. I’m not quite sure why. I think I need to go with somebody. I would like to go with somebody, maybe with a Muslim person or somebody who would, you know, tell me what to do. I don’t want to do the wrong thing, you know, but I would love, and of course there are so many wonderful mosques in the world to visit.

• They really are beautiful.

• Actually, you could do a great, I think you could do, I’ve got a book on all the synagogues in Paris and, and that would, you know, we’d need to do it with somebody with sort of inside connections here, 'cause they’re difficult to get into. But that would be a really interesting, you know, a few days to do the synagogues of Paris. There are art nouveau ones and art deco ones. Very interesting.

• Beautiful. The synagogues, the cathedrals and the mosques.

• Yeah, well, we could do all three. Why not?

• All roads lead to Rome! All roads lead to Jerusalem!

• I was having lunch with my students in Paris, we were very, we were just next to La Trinite actually. And I had a boy in my class and he said to me, would you like to visit the Grand Synagogue, on Rue de Victoire. I said, of course I’d love to, but it’s so difficult to get into it. It’s like airport security. He pulled out his mobile phone and he rang the chief rabbi of Paris, and 10 minutes later we were in it!

• Yeah, exactly. Well, we’re all very well connected with our communities. Patrick, thank you very, very much. And so we won’t have you on Wednesday, is that correct?

• That’s correct, yes.

• Yeah, because we are having the George Osborne is going to be, we are going to be jumping on nine yards, on their presentation, so will we see on Thursday? I haven’t looked at the programme.

• No, I think my next one is Sunday.

• Next Sunday, okay.

• I’m warning, it’s a bit X-rated, my next one, it’s the paintings at the Salon, you know, so lots of nudity, but I think most people can probably deal with that.

• No, I’m quite sure that’ll be something to look forward to looking ahead. Enjoy your week. Thank you everybody for joining us. Thank you. Thank you everybody. And yeah.