With love to sara, who will doubtless brain me.

[commodorified]

Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks.
Summer Moonshine (1938)

(WRT the architecture-commissioning classes of that and earlier eras I myself have speculated more than once that topiary is *the* unmistakable sign of a people much afflicted with spiritual inbreeding, alcoholism and tertiary syphillis, sometimes all at once, but this does not exclude the possibility of Gothic Revival being in the same symptom cluster... )

Via some fabulous person on my friendslist (curse this reading on the phone; no good will come of it), the
Random Wodehouse Generator

Comments

[legionseagle]

There has been speculation to the effect that Pugin for one probably did have tertiary syphilis.

Mind you, my mother when confronted with that great triumph of Gothic excess, Keble College Oxford (there was at that point an anti-Keble society, whose members were supposed to bring a brick to every meeting and CND posters bearing the slogan "What would a one-megaton nuclear bomb do to Oxford?" were regularly annotated "Destroy Keble, if we're lucky") said, thoughtfully, that she thought Oxford needed one, because it had one of all the other styles.

[jesuswasbatman]

I have to decry this post as I work next door to one of the great masterpieces of the Victorian Gothic Revival, still successfully in use for its intended purpose. And I'd be very sad to see it go.

[parhelion]

Hmm. We many need a lot more topiary, then, since Victorians were also clear on the concepts that well-executed public projects such as good drains and good roads are the keystone in the arch of civilization. Mind you, their culture of building could be brutal, but at least it was usually brutal with widespread benefits and not just brutal only to help out the developers and their friends in power.

[sara]

*cackles*

Really, I am more of an Arts and Crafts type myself, at least on a theoretical basis.

[auriaephiala]

What I love about Victorian architecture -- aside from the sturdiness of its fundamentals, as has been mentioned -- is its gorgeous use of wrought iron/steel and of glass. In particular, I love Victorian train stations, which have never been bettered.

In general, I think, Victorian public buildings were well-designed, whereas the interiors of their homes were ghastly.