Stylistic Cold Wars: Betjeman Versus Pevsner - Softcover

Mowl, Timothy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571275354 ISBN 13: 9780571275359

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2011

Synopsis

'That Prussian pedant', 'Herr Professor Doktor': these were two of the jibes John Betjeman levelled at Nikolaus Pevsner, who, it must be said, received them with great restraint. Betjeman and Pevsner were polar opposites, the one giving voice to an alluring threnody for the destruction of our historic landmarks, the other articulating the case for international modernism. Their different outlooks are most obviously manifested in the Shell County Guides, edited by Betjeman, and the magisterial Buildings of England series, which within the confines of impeccable scholarship, represents Pevsner's credo. The former is imbued with a most agreeable dilettantism that is strikingly successful in capturing ambience, the latter brilliantly and in compelling detail anatomizes individual buildings. Betjeman and Pevsner personified two opposing sensibilities and in this most engaging book Timothy Mowl shows how the two rivals became, behind a polite façade, irreconcilable foes who fought for the supremacy of their alternative visions until the same fatal illness struck them down. 'This entertaining analysis of Betjeman's dislike of what he believed Pevsner stood for is a subtle and unique contribution to twentieth-century English social and cultural history. Mowl has written an absolutely gripping story, full of irony and surprise, about two men who were so similar yet so totally different.' David Watkin

About this title

From the Publisher

Architectural historians John Betjeman and Nikolaus Pevsner both had a profound influence on the way Britain looks today, and the debate embodied in their work--between historical preservationism and international modernism--is of cultural significance throughout the contemporary world. While Pevsner argued in favor of imposing a functional townscape on postwar Britain, Betjeman mourned the destruction of historic landmarks and towns and effectively launched the "Heritage Industry." Extolling the virtues of Betjeman's point of view, Timothy Mowl concerns himself with the defense of places threatened by the British uncertainty on matters of architectural style and urban values so that England (and the world) do not "fill up with neutral buildings for a neutral people." A lively and instructive contribution to our understanding of 20th-century architectural and cultural history.

About the Author

Timothy Mowl is an architectural and landscape historian based at the University of Bristol. His many books include the following being reissued in Faber Finds: Stylistic Cold Wars: Betjeman versus Pevsner, Horace Walpole and William Beckford. He is currently researching and writing a nationwide series of the historic landscapes and gardens of England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0571275354
• ISBN 13: 9780571275359
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192