Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
Born 1 March 1812(1812-03-01)
Keppel St, Bloomsbury, London
Died 14 September 1852(1852-09-14) (aged 40)
Ramsgate, Kent, England, U.K.
Nationality British
Work
Buildings Palace of Westminster
Design many Victorian churches

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1 March 1812 – 14 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, and theorist of design, now best remembered for his work in the Gothic Revival style, particularly churches and the Palace of Westminster. Pugin was the father of E. W. Pugin and Peter Paul Pugin, who continued their father's architectural firm as Pugin and Pugin, and designed numerous buildings, including several in Australia and Ireland.

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Significance in the Gothic Revival

He was the son of a French draughtsman, Augustus Charles Pugin, who trained him to draw Gothic buildings for use as illustrations in his books, and his wife Catherine Welby.

Between 1821 and 1838 Pugin and his father published a series of volumes of architectural drawings, the first two entitled, Specimens of Gothic Architecture, and the following three, Examples of Gothic Architecture, that were to remain both in print and the standard references for Gothic architecture for at least the next century.

Following the destruction by fire of the Palace of Westminster in 1834, Pugin was employed by Sir Charles Barry to work on the new Parliament buildings in London. This followed shortly after a similar period of employment by Barry for the interior design of King Edward's School, Birmingham. He converted to Catholicism in 1835, but also designed and refurbished Anglican and Catholic churches throughout the country.

Other works include St Chad's Cathedral, Erdington Abbey, and Oscott College, all in Birmingham. He also designed the college buildings of St Patrick and St Mary in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth; though not the college chapel. His original plans included both a chapel and an aula maxima, neither of which were built due to financial constraints. The college chapel was designed by a follower of Pugin, the Irish architect J.J.McCarthy. Also in Ireland, Pugin designed St. Mary's Cathedral in Killarney, St. Aidan's Cathedral, Enniscorthy (renovated in 1996) and the Dominican church of the Holy Cross in Tralee. He revised the plans for St. Michael's Church in Ballinasloe, Galway.

Palace of Westminster

Pugin's biographer Rosemary Hill (God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain (2007)) shows that Barry may have designed the Palace as a whole and that only he could coordinate such a large project and dealing with its difficult paymasters, but he relied entirely on Pugin for its Gothic interiors, wallpapers and furnishings, including the royal thrones and the Palace's clock tower in which Big Ben hangs. It is very close in form to earlier Pugin designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall. The tower was Pugin's last design before descending into madness and dying. In her biography, Hill quotes Pugin as writing of what is probably his best known building: "I never worked so hard in my life [as] for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all the designs for finishing his bell tower and it is beautiful."

Pugin and the Earl of Shrewsbury

The Talbots lived near the town of Newport, Shropshire and Pugin was responsible for designing the oldest catholic church in Shropshire, St Peter and Paul,

Pugin in Ireland

Pugin was invited to Ireland by the Redmond family to work initially in the South East in Co. Wexford. He arrived in Ireland in 1838 at a time of greater religious tolerance, when Catholic churches were permitted to be built. Most of his work in Ireland consisted of religious work. Pugin demanded the highest quality of workmanship from his craftsmen, particularly the stonemasons who were well able for him. His subsequent visits to the country were infrequent and of short duration.

Buildings in Ireland attributed to Pugin

Pugin and Australia

The first Catholic bishop of New South Wales, Australia, John Bede Polding, met Pugin and was present when St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham and St. Giles' Catholic Church, Cheadle were officially opened. Polding persuaded Pugin to design a series of churches for him. Although a number of churches do not survive, St Francis Xavier's in Berrima, New South Wales is regarded as a fine example of a Pugin church.

St Stephen’s Chapel in the cathedral grounds in Elizabeth St, Brisbane, was built to a design of AWN Pugin. Construction began in 1848, and the first Mass in the church was celebrated on 12 May 1850. In 1859 James Quinn was appointed Bishop of Brisbane, Brisbane becoming a diocese, and Pugin's small church became a cathedral. When the new cathedral of St Stephen was opened in 1874 the small Pugin church became a school room, and later church offices and storage room. It was several times threatened with demolition before its restoration in the 1990s.

In Sydney, there are several altered examples of his work , namely St Benedict's, Chippendale; St Charles Borromeo, Ryde; the former church of St Augustine of Hippo (next to the existing church), Balmain; and St Patrick's Cathedral, Parramatta, which was gutted by a fire in 1996 [1]. Pugin's legacy in Australia, is particularly of the idea of what a church should look like:

Pugin's notion was that Gothic was Christian and Christian was Gothic, ... It became the way people built churches and perceived churches should be. Even today if you ask someone what a church should look like, they'll describe a Gothic building with pointed windows and arches. Right across Australia, from outback towns with tiny churches made out of corrugated iron with a little pointed door and pointed windows, to our very greatest cathedrals, you have buildings which are directly related to Pugin's ideas.[1]

After his death A.W. Pugin's two sons; E. W. Pugin and Peter Paul Pugin, continued operating their father's architectural firm under the name Pugin and Pugin. This work includes most of the "Pugin" buildings in Australia and New Zealand.

Later years

A.W.N. Pugin died, at the age of 40, on 14 September 1852 as a result, not of insanity, but probably of the effects of syphilis.[2] His body is in a vault under the church that he designed next to The Grange in Ramsgate.[3]

Pugin's legacy extends far beyond his own architectural designs. He was responsible for popularising a style and philosophy of architecture that reached into every corner of Victorian life. He influenced writers like John Ruskin, and designers like William Morris. His ideas were expressed in private and public architecture and art throughout Great Britain and beyond. 

List of Pugin's principal buildings in the United Kingdom

House designs, with approximate date of design and current condition

[4]

Institutional designs

Major ecclesiastical designs

Railway cottages

Slightly less grand than the above are the railway cottages at Windermere railway station in Westmorland. Believed to date from 1849, and probably some of the first houses to be built in Windermere, the terrace of cottages was built for railway executives. A typical example is Old Codgers Cottage currently used as a holiday cottage. The owners have researched its history to find that it was inhabited by the head drayman for the railway company on the 1861 census. One of the fireplaces is a copy of one of his in the Palace of Westminster.

See also

References

  1. ^ Steve Meacham (4 February 2003). "A genius in his Gothic splendour". Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/03/1044122320848.html. Retrieved 30 January 2006. 
  2. ^ cf. Rosemary Hill (1995).
  3. ^ Feature in The Guardian.
  4. ^ Pugin Society website, Undated. Accessed 11-13-2007.
  5. ^ Gregory's Angels, Gordon J. Beattie, Gracewing Publishing, 1997, p143. Accessed 11-13-2007.
  6. ^ "Cathedral tour — 9". Leeds Cathedral. http://www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk/cathedral/cathedral_tour/floorplan.php#. Retrieved 31 January 2009. 
  7. ^ "Restoring a masterpiece". BBC Leeds. http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/content/articles/2007/02/15/faith_st_annes_reredos_feature.shtml. Retrieved 31 January 2009. 
  8. ^ Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (revision) (1961). The Buildings of England – Northamptonshire. London and New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 338. ISBN 978-0-300-09632-3. 

Sources

External links