Urban Italianate architecture in Britain with particular reference to London c.1800-c.1865

Thesis

This thesis examines the sources, critical reception and practice of the Italianate in British urban architecture c.1800-1865. In the past, the term ‘Italianate’ has largely been applied retrospectively in an attempt to categorise a manner of building wherein the architectural grammar, or at least the regional accent, of Italy can be observed to have informed the ornament and form of a building. However, within the bracket of the Italianate there existed a wide degree of variation, often too extreme to be understood as subgenres. I have used the term ‘Italianate’ to mean urban astylar structures designed and erected in Britain, while seeking to show that, for its contemporaries, the Italianate was defined by a rejection of historicism, practical urban requirements and a typological understanding of urban architecture. My research focuses on the emergence and early evolution of an urban Italianate and this has led me to look at its origins and development in London. The British (primarily English) architectural press also forms a ‘geographical’ locus, which at that time was chiefly metropolitan. The 1800-c.1865 timeframe has been chosen to encompass both the Italian tours of early practitioners and the cessation of the Italianate as a ‘new’ form of architecture. This thesis demonstrates that urban Italianate was in fact the nineteenth-century urban vernacular and succeeded because it enabled debates about ‘style’ to be circumvented and allowed for regulatory compliance. But, beyond this, this thesis will seek to open early-nineteenth-century urban architecture to wider debate, by refuting the Picturesque as a defining aspect of early-nineteenth-century architectural practice, and demonstrating that, far from seeking to break with eighteenth- century architecture, many early-nineteenth-century architects wished to engage with what they saw as the roots of their profession.

Authors: McKinstry, DF

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Italiante; Victorian architecture; town planning; architecture
• Subjects: Architectural History