The Battle of the Styles

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.

ISBN 1441167390   Pages 224 ISBN13 9781441167392 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 590 Publisher Continuum Publishing Corporation   Published in New York Imprint Continuum Publishing Corporation   Height (mm) 234 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 156 Publication date 24 Mar 2011   Spine width (mm) 25 DEWEY 725.1209421   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

List of Illustrations; Preface; 1. The Battle Joined; 2. A Hybrid Society; 3. Early Skirmishes; 4. A Grand and National Work; 5. Worthy of Our Imperial City; 6. The Lamp of Morality; 7. An Architecture for our Age; 8. Not the most Interesting Public Question of the Day; 9. A Change for the Worse; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

'Porter tells this unedifying story in detail from the point of view of one interested in the British cultural, social and political contexts of the time, and he does so with zest...'--,

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