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Summary:
This exhibition catalogue explores 'the cult of the ruin', a phenomenon of 18th and early 19th century Europe. Mock ruins were built as 'follies' in landscape gardens, while artists imagined how London would appear as a ruined city after the collapse of the British Empire. In Rome, interiors were painted as trompe l'oeil(...)
Architecture Monographs
January 1999, London
Visions of ruin : architectural fantasies & designs for garden follies
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$29.50
(available to order)
Summary:
This exhibition catalogue explores 'the cult of the ruin', a phenomenon of 18th and early 19th century Europe. Mock ruins were built as 'follies' in landscape gardens, while artists imagined how London would appear as a ruined city after the collapse of the British Empire. In Rome, interiors were painted as trompe l'oeil ruins, and in Paris the great chef Antoine Carême served blancmanges in the shape of Roman ruins. John Soane represents the climax of this fascination. In the garden of his Museum at No.13 Lincoln's Inn Fields is the 'Monk's Yard', a mock-ruin assembled from medieval fragments of the Palace of Westminster. At his country house, Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing, he pretended that a mock-classical ruin was a Roman temple he had discovered at the bottom of the garden. He commemorated the completion of his masterpiece, the Bank of England, by exhibiting a series of astonishing views of the structure as if a ruin. He even wrote a narrative, "Crude Hints Towards the History of My House", in which he imagined an archaeologist of future centuries inspecting the fragments of his home. The transcribed text is reprinted in this publication. Architects and artists include Robert Adam, William Chambers, Hubert Robert, Piranesi, Clerrisseau, Richard Wilson, J. M. W. Turner, Gustave Doré and John Martin.
books
January 1999, London
Architecture Monographs