The Town House in Georgian London


Book Description

This title takes a fresh look at a familiar building type - the town house in 18th century London - and investigates the circumstances in which individuals made decisions about living in London, and particularly about their West End house.




The Georgian London Town House


Book Description

For every great country house of the Georgian period, there was usually also a town house. Chatsworth, for example, the home of the Devonshires, has officially been recognised as one of the country's favourite national treasures - but most of its visitors know little of Devonshire House, which the family once owned in the capital. In part, this is because town houses were often leased, rather than being passed down through generations as country estates were. But, most crucially, many London town houses, including Devonshire House, no longer exist, having been demolished in the early twentieth century. This book seeks to place centre-stage the hugely important yet hitherto overlooked town houses of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, exploring the prime position they once occupied in the lives of families and the nation as a whole. It explores the owners, how they furnished and used these properties, and how their houses were judged by the various types of visitor who gained access.




The Care and Conservation of Georgian Houses


Book Description

Imagine some obscure bar. Imagine light bulbs going back and forth above tables filled with empty glasses. Imagine men with perfect haircuts begging beautiful women for a long, sensuous dance, and end up with Room Eleven. Or, with as much ease, imagine that final holiday night in which seductive glances have their last shot and a lonely mosquito gets lost in the blazing campfire. The list of atmospheric sketches one can come up with is endless, but as long as they sway back and forth between melancholic, summery, seductive and fiery, they are accurate. So, imagine Room Eleven, a band that came into existence because of a simple note pinned on a notice board at the Conservatorium in Utrecht. With their 2006 debut album Six White Russians And A Pink Pussycat, they have managed to impress an increasingly bigger audience with a catchy mixture of jazz, pop, funk, blues and a touch of folk. Whether a strict jazz lover or a young pop fan, in the end you will be won over by the their incredible stage presence. Not only music fans have come to appreciate the band, Room Eleven has also managed to convince the press. Their debut album has received much critical acclaim. One magazine poetically described Janne Schra's voice as 'a juicy green meadow, just after sunset, covered in fresh dew.' As one radio DJ put it: 'She seduces you, moves you and makes you happy, all in one sentence.'




The Georgian Town House


Book Description

Beautifully illustrated history of the Georgian home.




Perfect English Townhouse


Book Description

Continuing her exploration of English interiors, Ros Byam Shaw visits 14 distinctive townhouses full of charm, character and style. In Perfect English Townhouse, Ros Byam Shaw examines the timeless English style of decoration in a variety of Georgian, Victorian, and contemporary townhouses. Architecturally, these tall, narrow properties present challenges. How do you make the best of a basement kitchen with a low ceiling and little light? Or allocate space effectively when you live across five floors? And how do you maximize any outdoor space? Perfect English Townhouse features case studies of such homes, not only in London but also in the provincial towns and cities of England. Some feel like little corners of countryside surrounded by sidewalks, others have a more sophisticated urban allure; some are endearingly quirky, others more classical. All the interiors featured are interesting, inspiring, and reflect the personalities of the people who live in them. These are the kinds of spaces that most of us are familiar with, and that many of us occupy. What is unusual is how cleverly and creatively these examples have been decorated and designed, in the Perfect English style.




The Small House in Eighteenth-century London


Book Description

London's modest eighteenth-century houses - those inhabited by artisans and labourers in the unseen parts of Georgian London - can tell us much about the culture of that period. This fascinating book examines largely forgotten small houses that survive from the eighteenth century and sheds new light on both the era's urban architecture and the lives of a culturally distinctive metropolitan population. Peter Guillery discusses how and where, by and for whom the houses were built, stressing vernacular continuity and local variability. He investigates the effects of creeping industrialisation (both on house building and on the occupants), and considers the nature of speculative suburban growth. Providing rich and evocative illustrations, he compares these houses to urban domestic architecture elsewhere, as in North America, and suggests that the eighteenth-century vernacular metropolis has enduring influence.




Mass Housing


Book Description

This major work provides the first comprehensive history of one of modernism's most defining and controversial architectural legacies: the 20th-century drive to provide 'homes for the people'. Vast programmes of mass housing – high-rise, low-rise, state-funded, and built in the modernist style – became a truly global phenomenon, leaving a legacy which has suffered waves of disillusionment in the West but which is now seeing a dramatic, 21st-century renaissance in the booming, crowded cities of East Asia. Providing a global approach to the history of Modernist mass-housing production, this authoritative study combines architectural history with the broader social, political, cultural aspects of mass housing – particularly the 'mass' politics of power and state-building throughout the 20th century. Exploring the relationship between built form, ideology, and political intervention, it shows how mass housing not only reflected the transnational ideals of the Modernist project, but also became a central legitimizing pillar of nation-states worldwide. In a compelling narrative which likens the spread of mass housing to a 'Hundred Years War' of successive campaigns and retreats, it traces the history around the globe from Europe via the USA, Soviet Union and a network of international outposts, to its ultimate, optimistic resurgence in China and the East – where it asks: Are we facing a new dawn for mass housing, or another 'great housing failure' in the making?







Classic Georgian Style


Book Description

Henrietta Spencer-Churchill tours a variety of Georgian houses throughout the British Isles to give a fascinating overview of the period 1700 to 1830.




Building the Georgian City


Book Description

Georgian architecture had its roots in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Out of that disaster grew the need for rapid redevelopment which was accomplished through standardization and the relaxation of restrictive practices in the building trades. This book investigates the decline in crafted buildings of the traditional client economies and the introduction of mass produced components which characterizeed an emerging consumerism. It is an approach which offers insights into our architectural heritiage by focusing on the traditions and innovations in the building methods of the time - the construction processes, the role of the building craftsmen, and the tools and materials they used. James Ayres describes how builders in London developed the terraced house and town centre building systems which influenced the architecture of Bath, Edinburgh, Dublin and distant Philadelphia. He takes us through the building processes craft by craft, from the work of the surveyors and labourers who established the foundations to the joiners and painters who finished the interiors.