The residential and institutional architecture and interior design by an eminent London-based classical architect. John Simpson is one of the world’s leading practitioners of new classicism, a contemporary architecture movement that continues the practice of classical and traditional architecture and embraces the virtues of durability, functionality, and beauty. Simpson’s design ethos revolves around the notion that architecture is a public art where each facade forms the character and shape of the public realm — the streets, the squares, and the major civic spaces that we use — and as such must use a language of building that is recognizable and draws on our collective cultural experience. His architecture is thus understandable in a moment and is functional; it is built to last, to be beautiful, and to ensure the comfort and ease of those who experience it, be it the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London or an apartment in a historic building in New York. The work shown covers a wide range, from small-scale residential and apartment design to the country house and the town house to large-scale institutional designs. Featured projects include a new academic quadrangle at Eton College; the new school of architecture at the University of Notre Dame; rooms at Kensington Palace; the Stanhope Hotel renovation in New York; town houses in Belgravia and Chelsea, London; and much more.

About the Author:

David Watkin is professor of the history of architecture at the University of Cambridge.

Far and away the best narrative of western architecture in existence...it stands out as an intellectual triumph. - Sir John Summerson

In this highly acclaimed, classic reference work David Watkin traces the history of western architecture from the earliest times in Mesopotamia and Egypt to the late twentieth century. For this seventh edition, revising author Owen Hopkins provides a new introduction contextualizing Watkin's approach. The final chapter on the twenty-first century has been completely rewritten by Hopkins, who brings the story right up to date with the inclusion of such topics as re-use, digital cities and virtual architecture.

About the Authors:

Owen Hopkins is Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University. Previously he was Senior Curator at Sir John Soane's Museum and before that he was Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. He is the author of several books including Reading Architecture: A Visual Lexicon (2012), Architectural Styles: A Visual Guide (2014; both Laurence King), Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore (2020) and The Museum (2021).

David Watkin was Emeritus Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. His many books include Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures (1996), Morality and Architecture Revisited (2001) and The Roman Forum (2009). He died in 2018.

Over 150 superb photographs from the Country Life archive are selected especially here to highlight 25 major houses and their architects in a stunning and astoundingly thorough display.

In The Classical Country House architectural historian David Watkin takes a fresh and innovative look at the traditional British country house and shows how Classicism has been a seminal influence on British architecture since the seventeenth century. He demonstrates how the antecedents of the British Classical house, which lie in both Greek and Roman antiquity, were vigorously revived in the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, and enjoyed new life when transplanted to Britain by Inigo Jones, after his Grand Tour of the Continent in 1613 14. The book consists of five parts. The first looks at the birth of English Classicism in the seventeenth century, when houses such as Wilton House in Wiltshire (where Jones and John Webb designed the celebrated Double Cube Room) and Coleshill in Berkshire, reflect a rejection of contemporary styles in favour of a Renaissance-influenced design. The second part shows how the flowering of Classic design in the eighteenth century led to the creation of some of the most celebrated houses of the period: Chiswick House, Holkham Hall, Sir John Soane's Pitzhanger Manor, and the Grecian templar house, Grange Park. The third part recounts how the austerity of many buildings designed in the 18th century gave way to the richer styles of the Italian Renaissance Revival in the 19th century seen, for example, in Kingston Lacy, Dorset and Brodsworth Hall, Yorkshire. The final two chapters, on the twentieth century and beyond, reveal how even as individual an architect as Sir Edwin Lutyens immersed himself in a Classical language of design, in houses as diverse as Nashdom, Gledstone and the British Embassy in Washington D.C; and how, as the influence of Modernist design has waned, Classical styles have been revived most notably in the houses of Raymond Erith after the Second World War, and more recently by architects such as Quinlan Terry. David Watkin has selected over 150 of the finest images from the Country Life archive to illustrate an incisive study of 26 major houses and their architects. This highly informative and enlightening survey of Classicism through the centuries is a major addition to architectural history.

In his highly acclaimed reference work David Watkin traces the history of western architecture from the earliest times in Mesopotamia and Egypt to the dramatic impact of CAD (computer-aided design) on architectural practice at the beginning of the 21st century. Adopting an approach that sees architectural history as a living continuity rather than a museum of neatly labelled styles, the author emphasizes the ongoing vitality of the Classical language of architecture, underlining the continuity between, say, the work of Ictinus in 5th-century BC Athens and that of McKim, Mead and White in 20th-century New York. Authoritative, comprehensive and highly illustrated, this fourth edition has been expanded to bring the story of western architecture right up to date.

Contents
Preface
1. Mesopotamia and Egypt
2. The Classical Foundation: Greek, Hellenistic, Roman
3. Early Christian and Byzantine
4. Carolingian and Romanesque
5. The Gothic Experiment
6. Renaissance Hamrony
7. Baroque Expansion
8. Eighteenth-Century Classicism
9. The Nineteenth Century
10. Art Nouveau
11. The Twentieth Century and Beyond
Glossary
Further Reading
Index

This all-embracing and well-illustrated survey provides an even-handed, straightforward history of English architecture from Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the 20th century. Concentrating on buildings that can still be seen today, David Watkin discusses all the styles and periods of English architecture, including Norman, early Gothic, Perpendicular, Jacobean, Baroque, Classical Revival and Victorian.

The emphasis is on the high points of English creative genius as expressed in the art of architecture by Inigo Jones, Christopher Wren, John Soane, Edwin Lutyens, Richard Rogers and a host of others. This updated edition includes a new preface, a revised bibliography, and an expanded chapter on the Modern Movement and more recent styles that brings the story up to the present.

Often described as Prince Charles's favourite architect, Quinlan Terry is at home in every traditional style, from Classical Greek to Roman, Gothic to Renaissance, and Baroque to Neo-classical. With intense new interest in classical design, there is a high demand for a compilation of Terry's work, a volume that showcases the ideas and creations of one of the world's most daring traditionalist designers.

At the pinnacle of his career — this year's winner of the Driehaus Prize, classical architecture's highest honour — Quinlan Terry is one of the most celebrated practitioners of the form and also perhaps the most radical.

Radical Classicism contains hundreds of lavish colour illustrations and thirty of Terry's designs, including staterooms at Downing Street #10, a library and residential building at Cambridge University, a cathedral in Essex, a church in Bishopsgate, four buildings in Williamsburg, Va., townhouses in London, and ten large country houses in England, Germany, and the U.S. Buildings featured include Juniper Hill in Buckinghamshire; Ionic Villa, Corinthian Villa, and Regency Villa in Regents Park, London; Abercrombie House in Kentucky; Latourette Farm, New Jersey; Highland Park House, Dallas, Texas.