The Gothic Revival and American Church Architecture

The Gothic Revival and American Church Architecture
Author: Phoebe B. Stanton
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 382
Release: 1997-05-28
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780801856228

This illustrated account of the impact of the English Gothic revival on American church architecture in the mid-nineteenth century finds that this fundamentally conservative movement provided the foundation for a new, influential aesthetic. With meticulous research and carefully chosen illustrations, Phoebe Stanton here explores the influence of the English Gothic revival on American church architecture in the mid-nineteenth century, arguing that this fundamentally conservative movement provided a foundation for a new aesthetic. Examining the writings of the movement's leading proponents as well as a variety of important buildings, Stanton offers a comprehensive survey of the architectural principles and models that became most influential in America. She also confirms the importance of the Cambridge Camden Society, which provided the theoretical atmosphere and practical examples that helped to establish new standards of excellence in American architecture.

The Cambridge Movement

The Cambridge Movement
Author: James F. White
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2004-10-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1592449379

For over a hundred years, Anglican church buildings in every part of the world were dominated by a single idea of what churches should look like and how they should be arranged inside. Only since Vatican II has the dominance of this idea been finally overthrown. Thousands of churches still reflect the architectural dogmas of the Cambridge Camden Society. Millions of worshippers still imbibe the theology so effectively promoted by this group through its powerful influence on the arrangement of church interiors and the style of such buildings. And many of these architectural images of what is the nature of the Church itself have proved to be the most stubborn resisters of Vatican II reforms. The Cambridge Camden Society was so successful in changing the outward aspects of Anglican worship because it had specific ideas as to how churches should be arranged. The Society's infatuation with a certain period of gothic architecture and with the whole medieval 'cultus' brought about drastic changes in worship according to the 'Book of Common Prayer' without changing a single letter of the prayer book itself. The members of the Society led the way not only in the revival of medieval architecture but also of vestments and ceremonial. Though much of the Cambridge Camden theology reflects that of the Oxford Movement, Dr. White shows both parallels and contrasts between the aims of Oxford tractarians and Cambridge ecclesiologists. Architecture proved to be every bit as effective a form of propaganda as tracts, and a good deal more permanent. The public, at first hostile, eventually became receptive to the ideals of the Cambridge Movement. The measure of the Movement's success is seen in almost all Anglican (and many Protestant) churches built or remodelled between 1840 and the 1960s. This is a valuable contribution to nineteenth-century studies, especially to the visual history of the period.

The Gothic Revival & American Church Architecture

The Gothic Revival & American Church Architecture
Author: Phoebe B. Stanton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1968
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

With meticulous research and carefully chosen illustrations, Phoebe Stanton here explores the influence of the English Gothic revival on American church architecture in the mid-nineteenth century, arguing that this fundamentally conservative movement provided a foundation for a new aesthetic. Examining the writings of the movement's leading proponents as well as a variety of important buildings, Stanton offers a comprehensive survey of the architectural principles and models that became most influential in America. She also confirms the importance of the Cambridge Camden Society, which provided the theoretical atmosphere and practical examples that helped to establish new standards of excellence in American architecture.

The Victorian Church

The Victorian Church
Author: Chris Brooks
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 1995
Genre: Church architecture
ISBN: 9780719040207

This is a reassessment of the phenomenon of church architecture in the 19th century. It presents a range of interpretations that approach Victorian churches as products of institutional needs, socio-cultural developments, and economic forces.

The Battle of the Styles

The Battle of the Styles
Author: Bernard Porter
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2011-03-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1441174737

This title explores the controversy surrounding the design of the new Foreign Office in London during Britain's Imperial heyday. In 1855 it was decided to build a new block of government offices in London, starting with the Foreign and War Offices. The government offices competition came at what was probably - looking back on it - the zenith of Britain's confidence as a nation and international power. One would expect the mid-Victorians to have felt, firstly, pride in their current national situation; and secondly, the urge to commemorate this in the most important national building to be projected in twenty years. Porter uses the debates surrounding the building of these important new monuments to interrogate the very fabric of British society, culture and nation building. The discussion on so many issues - religion, nationality, empire, history, modernism, truth, morality, gender - quite apart from considerations of 'pure' aesthetics, offers an unusual, perhaps even unique, insight into the relationship between these matters and the 'culture' of the time.