Pevsner, a German refugee from Hitler, an internee and a jobbing journalist, became the Grand Old Man of English art history through his extraordinary one-man survey of all the architecturally significant buildings in the country, county by county.
This lecture explores what Pevsner said, rightly or wrongly, about some of the buildings in our Society’s area – churches, houses, shops, town halls, tower blocks – and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole. His books have both detractors and passionate defenders, but no imitators.
IMAGES (courtesy of the lecturer unless stated)
A page from the passport of Nikolaus Pevsner (detail)
The tomb of explorer Richard Burton in Mortlake (courtesy G Grunwald)
The roof of the Palm House in Kew Gardens.
