Nikolaus Pevsner

Nikolaus Pevsner (January 30, 1902, Leipzig - August 18, 1983, London) was an architectural critic and theorist. Born in Germany, and later British national, he is best known today for his work The Buildings of England (1951-74), a monumental series of county-by-county guides to the architecture of Great Britain in 46 volumes.

Professional career

He studied at the Universities of Leipzig, Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt. He initially worked as assistant curator at the Dresden Gallery, between 1924 and 1928, and later held the post of Professor of Art History and Architecture at Göttingen, from 1929 to 1933.

During his stay at this University, Pevsner carried out his first research on the stage preceding the formation of the Modern Movement, a subject on which he directed a course in 1930.

Although he was not an active opponent of the German National Socialist regime in the 1930s, his Jewish origin prevented him from continuing to practice as a university professor in Germany in 1933. In 1934 he moved to Great Britain and published, in 1936, his first essay: Pioneers of Modern Movement from William Morris to Walter Gropius, the first coherent attempt to isolate the unleashing line of thought in modern architecture. With this work, Pevsner rejected the idea, until now accepted, that he considered the engineering works of the XX century">XX century as precursors of the Modern Movement or the figurative essays of the painters, demonstrating an origin from a moral and intellectual conception raised for the first time by the noucentista architect William Morris, to which the works of the engineers, the figurative experiences of the painters were successively joined and the contributions of the avant-garde architects between 1890 and 1914. This publication established the necessary bases to give a serious historical framework to the conclusions about the Modern Movement.

In 1937, with the publication of another essay: An Inquiry into Industrial Art in England, he deepened his knowledge of the movement for the reform of the applied arts, finding Morris again as a precursor. This work had a direct influence on the formation of the new English architecture, into which he introduced a broad knowledge of the European movement.

He taught Fine Art at Cambridge University (1949-1955) and worked as an assistant at St. John's College between 1950 and 1955. In 1967 he retired from teaching at Birbeck College, University of London, in which he was the first professor of Art History. In the year of his retirement he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

The Buildings of England

In addition to his academic career, Pevsner is best known today for his monumental 46-volume work on British architecture, The Buildings of England. Shortly after arriving in England, he realized that the study of the history of architecture had had little relevance in British academic circles and that the information available, especially for those travelers and curious people who wanted to inform themselves about architecture of a given region of England, was very limited. Invited by Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, for whom he had previously worked, he proposed the creation of an exhaustive series of architectural guides for all the counties of England to alleviate this deficiency.

In 1945 Pevsner began working on this project. He spent the academic holiday period touring England to make personal observations and carry out local research. The first volume was published in 1951. Pevsner is the author of 32 volumes of the original series and another 10 with collaborators, with 4 more written by other authors. Since his death, the series has been completed and updated, under the title Pevsner Architectural Guides (now published by Yale University Press), with revisions to earlier editions, already started in 1962 during Pevsner's lifetime, and with extension of the work to the rest of the United Kingdom, with series for Scotland, Wales, and also a series of its own for Ireland. Many of the individual volumes are considered classics.

Work

His main publications are the following books:

• Outline of European Architecture 1942 [Version in Spanish, Brief history of European architecture, by María Corniero Fernández and Fabián Chueca Crespo, in the collection Alianza Forma, n.o 126, Madrid, 1994]. (First edition in Spanish, "Esquema de la Arquitectura Europea", Editorial Infinito, Buenos Aires, 1957).

• The Leaves of Southwell (King Penguin series), Penguin, 1945.
• Pioneers of Modern Design (published originally as Pioneers of the Modern Movement, 1936; 2nd New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949; partially rewritten and revised, Penguin Books, 1960)
• The Buildings of England series (1951–74).
• The Englishness of English Art (1956).
• Christopher Wren, 1632-1723 (1960; as part of the series Universe Architecture).
• The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design (1968).
• A History of Building Types (1976).
• Pevsner: The Complete Broadcast Talks (Ashgate, 2014; published posthumously).

Publications in Spanish

• Dictionary of architecture (Alianza Editorial, S.A., 1980). ISBN 84-206-5116-8
• Studies on art, architecture and design (Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A., 1983). ISBN 84-252-1161-1
• History of architectural typologies (Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A., 1980). ISBN 84-252-0915-3
• The origins of modern architecture and design(Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A., 1969).ISBN 84-252-0344-9
• The origins of modern architecture and design(Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A., 1978). ISBN 84-252-0620-0