BOOK REVIEWS PINNACLESOFART NOUVEAU Victor Horta. David Demie and Alastair Carew-Cox 1995. Academy Editions. Hardback. 30 cm X 26 cm, 224pp. 200+ illus. ISBN 185490 418 2. £39.50. Sometimes the illustrations in a book are of such beauty that the reader can't put it down. This is one such. It is also a scholarly account of Victor Horta's Art Nouveau buildings in turn of the century Belgium. Jean Delhaye states in the foreword that "Horta" goal was to liberate architecture from the restrictive tutelage of both the Neoclassical and the Gothic ... and to express the work through all the materials available to the builder." The first section outlines themes from Horta's work. It is difficult to distil several decades of artistic history into fortyfive pages of text, notes and illustrations. These are necessarily selective. That on the Belgium avantgarde goes into considerable detail to establish the influences upon Horta and the milieu in which he moved. Others, such as that on 'line' and in particular the characteristic arabesque line used in many Horta designs, are a little thin. This is nonetheless a brave attempt, the shortcomings of which appear to be generated by the limited space available rather than content. What did Horta do between the ages of32 and 45 in the years 1893 to 1906?Theansweris to be found principally in delightful houses, villas and hotels, mainly in the Brussels area where most of his work still survives. Thirtyfive buildings remain. Nineteen buildings were chosen for this book including a late hospital, a store and La Maison du Peuple - the • only building demolished. 42 Each building examined includes a brief history, description and most importantly plans and photographs. The photographs taken by David Demie are superb and feature many details of stairs, railings, supporting columns, wall and floor decorations, glazed panels and external features. These give Art Nouveau its distinctive and individualistic style of flowing sinuous, vegetal lines. Here was a master of architecture and craft expressing himself to the full in an imaginative and emotional manner. Never has structural steel been so embellished or fitted furniture and light fittings been so integrated into designs. Of the buildings covered, the Hotel Tassel was painstakingly restored in the 1980s and Horta' s own house Maison and Atelier Horta (now a museum) has been extensively restored in the current decade. Restoration was difficult as Horta burnt most of this working drawings shortly before his death in 1947. What is surprisingly refreshing is how little many of the buildings covered have been altered, both inside and out. This is clearly a lasting testament to a marvellous architect. The only near equivalents in Britain are Mackintosh and William Morris. The book is rounded off with a bibliography, a chronology, a list of Horta's principal works in the period, an index and, most usefully, a map of Brussels showing where they are to be found. It is a real appetiser for a visit to Brussels and a fitting tribute to such tremendous architecture. It is certainly worth looking at and you may well be seduced into buying it. Francis Biard AS1RANGEROUGH MASONFROMHULL Pugin 'sbuilder - the life & works of George Myers. Patricia Spencer-Silver. UniversityofHullPress. 1993. xv+ 294pp; 77 b+w illus. ISBN O 85958 611 1. £15.95. The convention for describing a major building of the Industrial era generally relies upon the identification of the architect as designer, perhaps followed by a mention of the patron as instigator. Acknowledgement of the enabler, the building craftsman who transformed drawings into edifices and sketches into carvings, is all too often omitted or obscured as an afterthought. George Myers was an exceptionally capable and influential creator of buildings famous in his own time and in his own right as the builder of many of the most important and prestigious structures of the Victorian reign. His mastery of the Gothic mason's art, acquired over twenty years on the restoration of Beverley Minster, brought him to the attention of AW N Pugin. Pugin came to rely on Myers not only as his contractor but as his friend and collaborator in the revival of pure medieval Gothic. Pugin protected Myers when his work was criticised and even lost commissions because of his insistence on working with this singular builder. Pugin'sdeathin 1852didnothing to hinder the progression of Myers' Lambeth-based firm as one of the foremost building contractors in the land. Contracts to build and furnish major churches, institutes, houses and hospitals included work for the Rothschildes at Mentmore and the vast military constructions of Aldershot garrison town and Netley army hospital. Myers' stature and influence as a builder certainly deserve a biography, butthe loss ofhis own papers has allowed only inference to what must have been a powerful personality. The product of ten years of research, the style is that of the specialist academic with analysis of Myers' tender performance or contractual practice derived from the evidence of a very broad documentary base. The biographical facts about Myers are therefore less revealing than the chaotic world of Victorian building in which he evidently operated- difficult patrons, unpaid debts, slanderous rivals, site accidents, strikes, fights and drunkenness. How little has changed ... ? One surprising error (unforgivable to this particular reviewer!) -'Pugin's Gem', the Roman Catholic Church of St Giles for which Myers' craftsmen produced intricate carvings, is in the Staffordshire Moorlands market town of Cheadle and not Cheadle, Cheshire, as indicated in the List of Contracts and the index. Duncan Gillard SPLENDID ISOLATION English Heritage book of Victorian churches. James Stevens Curl. B T Batsford Ltd with English Heritage. London 1995. Softback.. xvi+ l 28pp; 88 b+w & 8 colour pl.; 9 drwgs. ISBN 0 71347 490 4. £14.99. Victorian churches is a book of exemplars rather than examples and, whilst it is a worthy addition to a worthy series, the 'Big, Dec. mechanical' church which might be found on any page of any Pevsner, and which has been so much the cause of prejudice towards Victorian architecture, is not dwelt on here. With an introduction to the tortuous intricacies and passions of late 18th and early 19th century religious movements, the reader pursues a complex journey from Pugin's pure medieval Gothic ideal through the best of the stylistic varieties of denomination, decade and architect. The journey culminates with the High Victorian and its derivatives including the bizarreworkof'Rogue Goths' and the more serene Arts and Crafts buildings of the turn of the century. It is almost a surprise to find the journey described as a circuit, for we return to admire the pure medieval Gothic as replicated and interpreted by Burgess, Bodley and Pearson in the last decades of Victoria's reign. Are we to understand that, in the search for an ideal, even the exemplary exercises in muscular polychrome, in composite Gothic or in eclectic European are judged to be excessive, primitive, impure or vulgar? On the subjectofVictorian 'restoration' of medieval churches, which so often required the clearance of all the accumulations of succeeding centuries, the Epilogue acknowledges the impetus for the conservation movement. The prose is colourful, which seems appropriate to the subject, and the architectural description and categorisation is very well structured and highly informed. The photographs and historic drawings, some in exquisite colour, have been carefully chosen and referenced to illustrate the points made in the text, whilst their captions are informative in their own right. Furthermore, the Glossary is superb. Nevertheless, elements of the text are compact to the point of impenetrability - for example, the maelstrom of rival doctrines and denominational animosity from which the variety ofVictorian church architecture evolved is not clearly explained, simply because of a surfeit of information. A tenuous phrase in the Preface contrives to explain the presence of an architectural history in an archaeological series, and it may be supposed that a comprehensive scholarly work has been over-condensed to suit the requirements of the series rather than the full needs of the subject. Duncan Gillard CONTEXT49
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