Main entry:

Buchanan, Alexandrina, author.

Title & Author:

Robert Willis (1800-1875) and the foundation of architectural history / Alexandrina Buchanan.

Publication:

Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK : The Boydell Press : Cambridge University Library, 2013.

Description:

xvii, 452 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Series:

The history of the University of Cambridge. Texts and studies, 0960-2887 ; volume 8

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 379-431) and index.
London and the early years -- Cambridge and scientific work to 1841 -- Remarks and the architecture of the Middle Ages and the membrological approach -- Evidence and its uses in architectural history -- The cathedral studies : 'landmarks' of architectural history -- Public scientist, private man -- The practice of architecture : Willis as designer, arbiter and influence -- 'Architectural and social history' : Canterbury and Cambridge.

Summary:

"Robert Willis was the archetypal nineteenth-century polymath. Officially, as Jacksonian Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, he specialized in the study of mechanism, which he also taught at the Royal School of Mines in London. In the field of science he was an experimentalist, inventor and educational innovator. Meanwhile, in his spare time, he pursued his passion, pioneering the serious study of architectural history. Initially his work was aimed at architects - his role in providing an intellectual underpinning to the contemporary Gothic Revival was acknowledged by the award of the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1862. However his main contribution was more historical. Starting with Canterbury, in 1844, over the course of his career, he investigated almost every English cathedral and developed an approach, combining documentary and archaeological research, which remains in use today. His studies culminated in the monumental Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, still the definitive account of its subject. In this fascinating and lavishly illustrated intellectual biography, drawn from extensive archival and architectural research, the author sheds new light on the interconnections between Willis's varied fields of interest and his fundamental role in the creation of a discipline."-- Back cover.

ISBN:

9781843838005 (hbk.)
1843838001 (hbk.)

Subject:

Willis, Robert, 1800-1875.
Willis, Robert 1800-1875
Architectural historians England Biography.
College teachers England Biography.
Architecture England History.
Historiens de l'architecture Angleterre Biographies.
Architecture Angleterre Histoire.
Architectural historians.
Architecture.
College teachers.
Architekturgeschichtsschreibung
England.

Form/genre:

Biographies.
History.

Added entries:

History of the University of Cambridge. Texts and studies ; 8.

Robert Willis and the foundation of architectural history

Holdings:

Location: Library main 286901
Call No.: BIB 227451
Status: Available