Beyond Neoclassicism
The Origins of Style Pluralism in Great Britain

Compared to the rest of the continent, the rediscovery of the repertoire of ancient forms from Italy reached the British Isles with a noticeable delay. The memory of their own building tradition, which preceded the influence of the classical architectural language, therefore remained much more alive in Great Britain than in the rest of Europe. At the same time, an intellectual climate developed there during the 18th century, which not only anticipated developments in the rest of Europe by several decades, but also triggered lively antiquarian interest among the educated classes. Against this background, architects and clients in Great Britain began to orient their building projects much earlier than elsewhere to previous periods in the history of architecture.

The compact seminar is intended to trace the history, the framework conditions and the motivations of this recourse more precisely. In particular, the focus will be on the processes through which the classical canon of forms gradually lost its sole validity - processes, which shaped the typology and style discussions of the 19th century far beyond Great Britain and which therefore also play a decisive role in understanding the architecture of continental Europe.

Painting: Paul Sandby - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12736405 - PD.