Victorian architecture1990

"By means of a collection of illustrations and authorative text, Professor James Stevens Curl brings to life the great architectural achievements of the Victorians. They responded to unprecedented challenges and opportunities and met these with confident, colourful, rumbustiously eclectic architecture." "Professor Curl deals with the palette of styles available to the Victorians; entirely new building types; novel materials; ecclesiastical buildings that, arguably, were superior to mediaeval exemplars; the responses of a vital society to contemporary challenges; and how they went further than anyone since Roman times to solve the problems of urban hygiene. All this is set firmly within the context of the intellectual complexities of the age."--Jacket.