Neoclassical and 19th Century Architecture/2 the Diffusion and Development of Classicism and the Gothic Revival

This volume offers a complete survey of European architecture during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, examining in particular the influence of the cultural trends of the period on the architects' works. The first section of the book deals with the history of eighteenth-century architecture in France and England, countries where Cartesian-school philosophical speculation and Anglo-Saxon philosophical empiricism wielded a determining influence. After analysing the developments of the classical tradition and its propagation throughout Europe, the book studies in depth the history of architectural movements, comprising neo-classicism, neo-Renaissance and neo-Gothic architecture. The outstanding, forerunning personalities of this brilliant artistic period who, in the course of the nineteenth century, offered fecund theoretic and stylistic contributions, include Gottfried Semper, John Ruskin and Eugene Viollet-le Duc.

Robin Middleton is professor of Art History at the Columbia University, New York. The focus of his studies is fench and English Architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. David Watkin is reader in the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, his numerous published works cover western architecture from the ancient world to the present day.