Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. Gift m essage in front. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> In the architectural history of the twentieth century the palms have been awarded to the vanguard. To stay at the head of progress has been an end in itself regardless of other considerations. Many have fallen short of this endeavour whether by compromise or expedi- ency. Others have won respect for consistently ignoring progress and the accepted ideas of modernity. Francis Pollen belongs in neither of these categories. His work challenges the whole conceptual framework through which archi- tectural judgment is commonly made based on the assumption that a single sequential development of style is the criterion of integrity. An architecture of integrity needs consistency but if Pollen’s work is accepted as possessing such integrity that quality must be found in other aspects than the more superficial cities of style. Otherwise an architect who jumped within thirty years from the classicism of Lutyens to New Brutalism and back to neo-Georgian cannot be accepted as serious except in respect of such aspects of his work as appeal to the taste of each critical spectator. I hope to show that Francis Pollen’s architecture in all its mani- festations was an architecture of integrity. This is important for he was not alone in his desire to make of modern architecture in the 1950s and 1960s something other than what was most often praised and published. The fact that allowing for his aversion to publicity and the lack of available images of his work an architect of Pollen’s ability should remain unknown for so long is mostly due to the lim ited methods of interpretation which prevent us from recognising the quality of his work.