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Titre:
The English folly: the edifice complex

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$60.50
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Résumé:
If this were a novel, the tales of astounding wealth, sexual perversion, murder, munificence, rape, insanity, brutality, slavery, religious mania, selfishness, snobbery, charity, suicide, generosity, theft, madness, wickedness, failure and eccentricity which unfold in these pages would be too concentrated to allow for the willing suspension of disbelief. All these sins and virtues, and more, are displayed by the characters in this book, some exhibiting several of them simultaneously. Folly builders were not as we are. They never built what we now call follies. They built for beauty, utility, improvement; it is only we, struggling after them with our imperfect understanding, who dismiss their prodigious constructions as follies. Follies can be found around the world, but England is their spiritual home. Having written the definitive books on follies in Great Britain, Benelux and the USA, Headley & Meulenkamp have turned their attention to the folly builders themselves, people so blinded by fashion or driven by some nameless ideology that they expended great fortunes on making their point in brick, stone and flint. Most follies are simply misunderstood buildings, and this book studies the motives, characters, decisions and delusions of their builders. If there was madness in their building, fortunately there was no method in it.

Titre:
The country house library

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$74.95
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Résumé:
Beginning with new evidence that cites the presence of books in Roman villas and concluding with present day vicissitudes of collecting, this illustrated book presents a complete survey of British and Irish country house libraries. Replete with anecdotes about owners and librarians, the book features information on acquisition bordering on obsession, the process of designing library architecture, and the care (and neglect) of collections. The author also disputes the notion that these libraries were merely for show, arguing that many of them were profoundly scholarly, assembled with meticulous care, and frequently used for intellectual pursuits.

Titre:
Cottages ornés : the charms of the simple life

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$66.50
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Résumé:
Tracing the history of cottages ornés (ornamental cottages), this copiously illustrated volume offers an engaging survey of an often-overlooked architectural genre. An invention of mid-18th-century England, these cottages were designed to facilitate a more informal way of living and were built in different guises that range from royal and imperial cottages to the working-class lodges that still dot the English countryside. Analyzing cottage designs by some of the leading architects of late-Georgian England—including Robert Adam, John Soane, and John Nash—Roger White explores the aesthetic values that made the form so appealing. As he follows the development of cottages ornés from the Celtic fringes to the Continent and the British colonies, White reveals the significant impact of the genre on social, cultural, and political history and examines the influence of cottage design on the architectural developments of the Victorian period and even the 20th century.

Titre:
Pablo Bronstein: Pseudo-Georgian London

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$29.95
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Résumé:
In this volume, Pablo Bronstein (born 1977) explores, in drawings and writing, the style that has come to dominate architectural development in London over the past 30 years, the pseudo-Georgian style characterized by its economy and its eccentric quotation of architectural history.

Titre:
The story of the country house

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$35.00
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Résumé:
The Story of the Country House is an authoritative and vivid account of the British country house, exploring how they have evolved with the changing political and economic landscape. Clive Aslet reveals the captivating stories behind individual houses, their architects, and occupants, and paints a vivid picture of the wider context in which the country house in Britain flourished and subsequently fell into decline before enjoying a renaissance in the twenty-first century. The genesis, style, and purpose of architectural masterpieces such as Hardwick Hall, Hatfield House, and Chatsworth are explored, alongside the numerous country houses lost to war and economic decline. We also meet a cavalcade of characters, owners with all their dynastic obsessions and diverse sources of wealth, and architects such as Inigo Jones, Sir John Vanbrugh, Robert Adam, Sir John Soane and A.W.N. Pugin, who dazzled or in some cases outraged their contemporaries. The Story of the Country House takes a fresh look at this enduringly popular building type, exploring why it continues to hold such fascination for us today.

Titre:
Houses: An architectural guide

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$27.95
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Résumé:
An enthusiast’s guide to exploring historic houses of England, this informative book also enables readers to discover more about the history of their own houses. Users can learn to interpret domestic architecture, identify period styles, uncover the origins of a building, and understand why rooms are arranged in particular sequences, why window and chimney designs change through history, or why staircases are presented in a certain fashion. Color photography and informative line drawings illustrate the explanations and provide a rich visual history of domestic architecture from the earliest surviving dwellings to the most avant-garde developments.

Titre:
Londres: la biographie

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$27.95
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Résumé:
Retrace les deux mille ans d'histoire de la ville de Londres, des premiers peuplements de Charing Cross au carnaval de Notting Hill, à partir d'une importante documentation, de témoignages et d'oeuvres d'art. Par une structure thématique, l'auteur aborde tous les visages de Londres : ses marchands, ses vagabonds, ses enfants, ses nuits... et rend accessible l'esprit de la ville.

Titre:
Building romanticism : literature and architecture in Nineteenth-Century Britain

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$70.00
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Résumé:
Focusing on the correspondence between the period's built environments and its literary pursuits, Building Romanticism argues that at this turbulent moment in British history a number of politically charged and aesthetically resonant architectural spaces, both real and imagined, negotiated intense anxieties about shifting notions of gender and sexuality, increased class mobility, the individual's uncertain place in history, challenges to the British national character and to the project of nation building, and the very form and function of art itself.

Titre:
When London was capital of America

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$35.00
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Résumé:
Benjamin Franklin secretly loved London more than Philadelphia: it was simply the most exciting place to be in the British Empire. And in the decade before the outbreak of the American Revolution, thousands of his fellow colonists flocked to the Georgian city in its first big wave of American visitors. At the very point of political rupture, mother country and colonies were socially and culturally closer than ever before. In this first-ever portrait of eighteenth-century London as the capital of America, Julie Flavell recreates the famous city's heyday as the centre of an empire that encompassed North America and the West Indies. The momentous years before independence saw more colonial Americans than ever on London's streets: wealthy Southern plantation owners in quest of culture, slaves hoping for a chance of freedom, Yankee businessmen looking for opportunities in the city, even Ben Franklin seeking a second, more distinguished career. The stories of the colonials, no innocents abroad, vividly recreate a time when Americans saw London as their own and remind us of the complex, multiracial - at times even decadent - nature of America's colonial British heritage.

Titre:
A lust for window sills: a lover's guide to British buildings from portcullis to pebble-dash

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$34.99
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Résumé:
Ever wondered why the floors in our terraced houses are different heights? Or what the landscape round where you live looked like before it was built on? And did you know you can date a building by its window sills? This publication tells us why and how. Harry Mount takes us on an engrossing tour of Britain's architecture, exploring the quirks, foibles and tiny details that make our buildings unique, and revealing the fascinating stories and anecdotes behind them along the way.