National Heritage and Style in Late Victorian Country House Architecture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18688/aa200-1-11Keywords:
Philip Webb, Victorian epoch, British architecture, English country house, national heritage, vernacular styleAbstract
The last years of Queen Victoria’s reign saw a marked change in the country’seconomic and public life. If the preceding decades, known as the High Victorian age, saw the peak of the growth of the empire, the 1880s was the time of crisis and economic decline. That could not but impale the idea of a great national past which inspired certain architectural prototypes borrowed from what was seen as the golden age of the empire. The new social tendencies were reflected vividly in architecture including the work of Ph. Webb. The article primarily concerns the country houses built by the architect. The British country house architecture saw some important changes in the Late Victorian age. Mainly, they concern the attitude toward national heritage. The High Victorian architects usually chose a distinct style or epoch in national architecture that they tried to imitate. In the Late Victorian era, architects often mix various styles and epochs in one project creating an image of an “Old English” house and Ph. Webb was the first one of them.
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