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ABSTRACT OF DOCTORAL THESIS
The British Victorian architect and designer Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852) was responsible for a wide variety of buildings and designs in the Gothic Revival style. In his publications, Pugin championed the architecture of the Middle Ages as representing an ideal mixture of style and faith and has subsequently been portrayed as advocating the return to a Medieval way of life. Conflated with that other champion of the Gothic Revival John Ruskin, scholars have applied Ruskin’s dislike of machine-made products to Pugin when in fact he was never concerned with the way in which his goods were produced. To accomplish such a vast amount of work in his short lifetime, Pugin relied on a group of skilled and trusted collaborators – John Hardman for metalwork and stained glass, John Gregory Crace for wallpaper and furniture, Herbert Minton for encaustic tiles, and George Myers for building construction – who utilised a range of mechanised processes to realise his designs. By examining Pugin’s working process, this thesis has sought to show that rather than rejecting mechanisation, Pugin took advantage of new materials and methods as a means to conveniently and expeditiously create the range of high-quality works for which he is known today. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION LITERATURE REVIEW The Gothic Revival as an International affair | Antiquarianism and historicity of “Gothick” | The Post-Victorian Era and Modernist Re-evaluations | Pugin Studies Today | Pugin’s Collaborators METHODOLOGY Methodological Approach | Bibliography as Method | Biography | Textual and Comparative Analyses | Revisionism | The History of Technology PUGIN’S REPRESENTATION AS ANTI-INDUSTRIAL Authors who point to Pugin’s own writings as evidence of his opposition to machinery and industrial progress | Contrasts (1836 and 1841) | True Principles | The Rise of Art-Manufactures and Middle Class Consumerism | Authors who paint Pugin as anti-industrial by equating him with Ruskin | The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) | The Stones of Venice (1851-53) | The Second Half of the Nineteenth Century | Ruskin’s Anti-Industrial Approach | Authors whose comments on Pugin’s attitude to machinery and industrialisation are ambiguous THE NATURE OF INDUSTRIALISATION Terminology amd Source Materials | Working Conditions. Production Locales, The Workshop System and Small-Scale Factory Settings | Disputes about Machinery PUGIN’S VIEWS ON MACHINERY AND PRODUCTION Furniture Business | Pugin the Architect | An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture (1843) | Pugin the Designer PUGIN’S COLLABORATORS Metalwork, Stained Glass – The Pugin Hardman Collaboration | Metalworking Processes | Educating Craftsmen | Wallpaper, Furniture – Collaboration with Crace | Wallpaper Printing and Principles of Pattern Design | The Pugin Crace Working Method | Encaustic Tiles – The Minton Firm of Staffordshire | Experimentation in Tile Manufacture | Premises, Machinery, and Workforce | Building Construction – Myers | Changes in the Architectural Profession | Workshop and Machinery | Working Methods in Stone and Wood | Advertising and Promotion PUGIN’S WORK IN PRACTICE Building Innovations and Interior Details at The Houses of Parliament | Superintendent of Woodcarving | Use of Machine Carving | Furniture and The House of Lords | Design Reform and Educating Workmen | Reform Applied to Manufactures | The Great Exhibition of 1851 | Exhibiting Machinery | Pugin’s Involvement with The Medieval Court | Modern Machinery and Medieval Goods | Reception |The Designs Purchase Committee CONCLUSION Future Investigation and Economic Urgency | Case Study – The House of Lords and Encaustic Flooring | Employment Opportunities | Legacy and Influence |
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