A gilded prince under a Gothic canopy in Kensington Gardens, book in hand, ringed by marble groups of the four continents (1862–1872)
Kensington Gardens, London
The Albert Memorial; the commission that won its architect his knighthood in 1872.
Architecture · Gothic & the revivals
George Gilbert Scott
1811–1878 · English
Gothic Revival
Sir George Gilbert Scott ran the largest architectural practice Britain has ever seen, working on something like 800 buildings. Converted to Gothic by reading Pugin, he built the Albert Memorial and the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras, lost the Battle of the Styles over the Foreign Office and had to build it as an Italian palazzo, and restored more English cathedrals than any other man — heavy-handedly enough to provoke William Morris into founding the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
How to spot them
- ▸Polychrome brick and stone, steep roofs, spires and dormers — Gothic scaled up to Victorian public building
- ▸A vast practice: cathedrals, workhouses, churches, town halls and colleges by the hundred
- ▸Restoration by 'scraping' — the practice that provoked Morris and the founding of the SPAB in 1877
- ▸A dynasty: son George Gilbert Scott Junior, son John Oldrid Scott, grandson Giles Gilbert Scott
Key buildings
A red-brick Gothic hotel and train shed in London, saved from demolition after a poet led the campaign (1868–1876)
Euston Road, London
The Midland Grand Hotel fronting St Pancras station; John Betjeman led the fight to save it.
A Whitehall office the architect wanted Gothic, but which a prime minister forced him to build as an Italian palace instead (1861–1868)
Whitehall, London
The Foreign Office, and the defeat that ended the Battle of the Styles; Palmerston insisted on classical.
A spired Eleanor-cross-like monument in Oxford to three bishops burnt in the reign of Mary I (1841–1843)
Oxford, England
The Martyrs' Memorial, to Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley — built with his partner W. B. Moffatt.
A German church whose spire, won in an English architect's competition entry, was for two years the tallest building in the world; the tower now stands alone as a war memorial (1846–1874)
Hamburg, Germany
St Nikolai, Hamburg — tallest building in the world 1874–76; gutted in the 1943 firestorm and kept as a memorial.
A university rehoused on a hill above the River Kelvin, its cloisters and tower in a Gothic hybrid of early French with northern British touches (1866–1870)
Glasgow, Scotland
The Gilbert Scott Building at Gilmorehill; the spire was completed by his son John Oldrid Scott.
An Edinburgh cathedral in Early English style with three spires, paid for by two sisters' bequest (1874–1879)
Palmerston Place, Edinburgh
St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, built with the Walker sisters' legacy; the two western spires were added later.
Key ideas
- Gothic is a living style, fit for railway stations and government offices as much as for churches
- A medieval building should be restored to the 'best' period of its fabric — the doctrine Ruskin and Morris attacked as destruction
- The architect as manager: a large office of assistants can deliver hundreds of buildings at once
Quick-fire facts
- •He was converted to Gothic by reading Pugin's Contrasts and True Principles; his early practice with W. B. Moffatt built workhouses under the New Poor Law
- •He won the competition for the Nikolaikirche in Hamburg in 1844, a rare foreign success
- •His Foreign Office designs were rejected by Lord Palmerston, who demanded classical; Scott gave way after a long public quarrel known as the Battle of the Styles
- •He restored or altered a large number of English cathedrals, including Ely, Lichfield, Salisbury, Durham, Hereford, Ripon, Chester and Westminster Abbey
- •William Morris founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877, provoked in part by Scott's proposals for Tewkesbury Abbey
- •He was knighted in 1872 and was President of the RIBA and Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy
- •His Personal and Professional Recollections were published after his death in 1879
- •He is buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey; his grandson Giles Gilbert Scott designed Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station and the red telephone box
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey including Saint Margaret's Church
- Kenneth Clark — The Gothic Revival