1st Edition

Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain Myth and Modernity, Excess and Enchantment

By Paul Dobraszczyk Copyright 2014
342 Pages 16 Color & 153 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

342 Pages
by Routledge

Vilified by leading architectural modernists and Victorian critics alike, mass-produced architectural ornament in iron has received little sustained study since the 1960s; yet it proliferated in Britain in the half century after the building of the Crystal Palace in 1851 - a time when some architects, engineers, manufacturers, and theorists believed that the fusion of iron and ornament would... Read more
Contents: Introduction: ornament unbound; Marketing ornament: iron founders and visual cultures of display; Social ornament: iron on the street; Demotic ornament: seaside ironworlds; Civic ornament: arcades and market halls; Meta-ornament: iron and the railway station; Postscript: ornament in ruins; Bibliography; Index.

Biography

Paul Dobraszczyk is Research Associate in Art History & Visual Studies, University of Manchester, UK.

'This book was well produced by the publisher, with a wealth of good illustrations. It should mark the beginning of a reassessment of cast iron as the plastic medium of Victorian modernity. Recommended.' Choice

'This book is a welcome addition to the rather small bibliography on Victorian cast iron architecture ... Comprehensively illustrated, extesively researched and with copious footnotes, it presents one of the most sustained studies to date of the development of mechanised architectural ornament in iron in 19th-century architecture ... Dobraszcyzk provides a refreshing evaluation of the contribution made by architects, designers and iron founders to the expanding urban fabric of 19th-century Britain and the world.' Decorative Arts Society Newsletter