People's Palaces - The Golden Age of Civic Architecture

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1 General Information
2 Cover
3 Information
- 3.1 Neo-Classical
- 3.2 The Gothic Revival
4 Screenshots
5 Technical Specs
6 Links

[edit] General Information

Arts Documentary hosted by Jonathan Foyle, published by BBC in 2010 - English narration

[edit] Cover

[edit] Information

Architectural historian Dr Jonathan Foyle explores some of the best Georgian and Victorian neo-classical civic buildings in the north of England. He visits town halls, concert halls, libraries, schools and galleries in Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford, Manchester and Todmorden in an unlikely story of rivalry, ambition and power in the service of social responsibility.

[edit] Neo-Classical

Neo-classicism harked back to Rome, democratic Athens and the Greek city-state. The regular proportion, geometry and symmetry of classical temple-style architecture suggested order in chaotically-expanding urban environments and served to associate towns regarded as squalid and unruly with the cultured ancient civilisations of antiquity. These were buildings constructed with the aim of elevating the towns in which they stood.

[edit] The Gothic Revival

Two men are primarily responsible for this medieval style's adoption by the Victorians. Augustus Pugin associated gothic with godliness and harmony and believed that architecture could influence morality. John Ruskin's influential book The Stones of Venice looked at the gothic architecture of the Italian renaissance mercantile republics and associated it with freedom. When Ruskin untethered gothic architecture from ecclesiastical building it went on to flourish in the hands of a generation of young, idealistic architects seeking to assert the cultural credentials of the north and exert an improving influence over the citizens of the burgeoning industrial towns.