"No book this year has provided me with such interest and visual delight as Gavin Stamp's superb Gothic for the Steam Age... Stamp is the finest architectural historian of the Victorian era and his evocation of Scott - architect and human being - is a masterpiece, accompanied by superb illustrations."
Gavin Stamps beautifully illustrated book begins to fill a huge gap What is needed now is a comprehensive life and work of Scott, whose funeral in Westminster Abbey was the grandest ever accorded to any British architect. Steeped in the works of the Scott dynasty, Stamp possesses the sensitivity, perspicacity, intelligence and sound judgements to make him the ideal candidate to write it.
"This book offers a brilliant overview of Scott's achievements. The pictures, accompanied by discursive captions, are beautifully chosen. Dr Stamp writes about his subject succinctly with authority, verve and clarity. ...he does something that lifts this book far above the ordinary as a work of architectural history. The result is that Dr Stamp has not just informed me of the fact that Scott was a great architect; he has fully persuaded me."
"This excellent book gives us a Scott for our age, as Scott gave us Gothic for the Steam Age. Scott lacks a full scale biography but, as author Gavin Stamp says, the sheer scale of his work, embracing some 800 buildings and designs, makes this an impossible task; in any case we have Scotts autobiography Personal and Professional Recollections. What Stamp gives us instead is much more interesting..."
"This book offers a brilliant overview of Scott's achievements. The pictures, accompanied by discursive captions, are beautifully chosen. Dr Stamp writes about his subject succinctly with authority, verve and clarity. ...he does something that lifts this book far above the ordinary as a work of architectural history. The result is that Dr Stamp has not just informed me of the fact that Scott was a great architect; he has fully persuaded me."
Gavin Stamps beautifully illustrated book begins to fill a huge gap What is needed now is a comprehensive life and work of Scott, whose funeral in Westminster Abbey was the grandest ever accorded to any British architect. Steeped in the works of the Scott dynasty, Stamp possesses the sensitivity, perspicacity, intelligence and sound judgements to make him the ideal candidate to write it.
"No book this year has provided me with such interest and visual delight as Gavin Stamp's superb Gothic for the Steam Age... Stamp is the finest architectural historian of the Victorian era and his evocation of Scott - architect and human being - is a masterpiece, accompanied by superb illustrations."
In the context of Stamps work with the Victorian Society and his vocal presence as a campaigner for Britains nineteenth-century architecture, this book compels readers to act as well as to admire. Its well-illustrated essay demonstrates the remarkable extent to which Scott and Victorian architecture were practically synonymous. With its substantial essay and gazetteer, Gothic for the Steam Age may point to new routes for further research on this most prolific and influential of architects.
* Burlington Magazine *
