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Visual Planning and the Picturesque
"If the whole of a town is in the end not visually pleasing, the town is not worth having."
-Sir Nikolaus Pevsner
Pevsner's Townscape presents a previously unpublished work by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), one of the twentieth-century's most widely read scholars of art and architectural history. Begun in the mid-1940s, Pevsner's unfinished manuscript is something of an anomaly in his vast oeuvre of writings
in so far as it sought to complement the body of thought emerging in postwar Britain that was concerned with urban design, generally referred to as "Townscape."
As assembled and annotated here, Pevsner's On Visual Planning and the Picturesque comprises three parts. The first part analyzes English planning tradition before 1800. The second surveys English planning theory or, by Pevsner's lights, the theory of the picturesque. The third part is
essentially a meditation on how this tradition and this theory shaped architecture and urban planning in England in the nineteenth century and, potentially, the twentieth as well. The work as a whole is a surprisingly fresh plea for a visual approach to urban design and common sense in architecture,
one that sought to incorporate and mediate, rather than idealize and exclude.
-Sir Nikolaus Pevsner
Pevsner's Townscape presents a previously unpublished work by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), one of the twentieth-century's most widely read scholars of art and architectural history. Begun in the mid-1940s, Pevsner's unfinished manuscript is something of an anomaly in his vast oeuvre of writings
in so far as it sought to complement the body of thought emerging in postwar Britain that was concerned with urban design, generally referred to as "Townscape."
As assembled and annotated here, Pevsner's On Visual Planning and the Picturesque comprises three parts. The first part analyzes English planning tradition before 1800. The second surveys English planning theory or, by Pevsner's lights, the theory of the picturesque. The third part is
essentially a meditation on how this tradition and this theory shaped architecture and urban planning in England in the nineteenth century and, potentially, the twentieth as well. The work as a whole is a surprisingly fresh plea for a visual approach to urban design and common sense in architecture,
one that sought to incorporate and mediate, rather than idealize and exclude.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published May 18, 2010
About the author
Nikolaus Pevsner
340 books29 followersSir Nikolaus Pevsner (January 30, 1902 - August 18, 1983) was one of the twentieth century's most learned and stimulating writers on art and architecture.
He established his reputation with Pioneers of Modern Design, though he is probably best known for his celebrated series of guides, The Buildings of England, acknowledged as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century scholarship. He was also founding editor of The Pelican History of Art, the most comprehensive and scholarly history of art ever published in English.
He established his reputation with Pioneers of Modern Design, though he is probably best known for his celebrated series of guides, The Buildings of England, acknowledged as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century scholarship. He was also founding editor of The Pelican History of Art, the most comprehensive and scholarly history of art ever published in English.
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