British architecture

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1. Baroque architecture

is notable for

is connected with

examples of the style

1. Georgian architecture

the main features

examples

1. Victorian architecture

the main features

examples

1. Renaissance architecture

the main features

is connected with

examples

1. Elizabethan architecture

is characterised by

is found in

1. Jacobean architecture

the main features

is connected with

examples

1. 20^th century architecture

the main features

examples 

XIII. Speak about; use the following phrases.

1. Baroque architecture.

to be notable for,

dignity and elegance,

to be connected with,

to be appointed Royal architect,

to design,

masterpiece.

1. Georgian architecture.

to be named after,

to succeed,

the main features,

symmetry,

restraint.

1. Elizabethan architecture.

to be characterised by,

large square windows,

towers and turrets,

elaborate plasterwork is ceilings. 

XIV. Translate from Russian into English.

1. Этот стиль можно найти во многих больших домах, построенных во второй половине 16 века.
2. Одним из самых знаменитых архитекторов того времени был Джоунс.
3. Стиль примечателен своим достоинством и элегантностью.
4. Основными чертами стиля были строгое и особое отношение к симметрии.
5. Этот стиль был назван в честь королевы Виктории, которая правила с 1837 по 1901 г.
6. Церкви, загородные дома, железнодорожные станции были сконструированы в усовершенствованном готическом стиле.

 

XV. Read the texts about London's famous Buildings, which represent different styles of architecture.  

Classical architecture.

The Banqueting House was built between 1619 and 1622 by Inigo Jones. 

The Queen's House, Greenwich, now part of the National Maritime Museum complex, is the first building in England to be designed in the classical style. It was built in 1616 by Inigo Jones for James It's wife, Anne of Denmark. But it was entirely completed in 1635 for Henrietta Maria, the French wife of Charles I. 

The National Gallery is a rather uninspired piece of classical design. It was built in 1838. 

The Tate Gallery was complete 1n 1897 in the high Victorian classical manner with a giant Corinthian portico surmounted by the figure of Britannia. 

Buckingham Palace was built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1705. It was subsequently remodelled and extended, most recently in 1913, when the 110m facade was reworked by Sir Aston Webb. Against this classical backdrop one of  London's popular events, the Changing of the Guard, takes place, daily at 11.30 a.m. 

Selfridges is one of Oxford Street's star attractions. The building is an impressive Edwardian pile fronted by Ionic columns. The ideas for the design were brought by its founder Harry Gordon Selfridge from Chicago.  

St. James's Church was the last of some 55 churches that Sir Christopher Wren designed London and the one that he himself liked best. 

The Chelsea Royal Hospital was set up in 1682 to provide food, accommodation and medical care for infirm veterans. The architect was Sir Christopher Wren, who, up to now, had concentrated almost exclusively on designing churches for the reconstruction of the City of London after the Great Fire. This was his first full-scale secular work, and he produced a building of almost barrack-like simplicity but of great dignity, which was subsequently extended between 1809 - 1817 by Sir John Soane. 

The Royal Albert Hall was finally completed in 1871. It is the immense domed building 83m in diameter and 47m high, capable of seating 8.000. 

Kensington Palace was enlarged and improved by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1690s. It was extended by William Kent in 1720s. The result is a roughly rectangular brick building; architecturally it is surprisingly modest, more a like country house than a palace in scale and appearance. 

Park Crescent in Regent's Park, a daring 1821 design by John Nash, was to be completely circular, in contrast to the squares that characterise Georgian London. Only half of the circus was built, but the curving terrace, with its colonnade of Ionic columns, hints at what Nash intended - a formal but theatrical entrance to Regent's Park, which has been since the separated from the Crescent by one of London's busiest streets. 

The British Museum was built in classical style with its Grecian-style facade between 1823 and 1852 by Sir Robert Smirke.  

St. Paul's Church is the oldest surviving building on the square of Covent Garden. It was built by Inigo Jones in the 1630, inspired by the cathedral in Livorno. His client, the Earl of Bedford, who owned the Covent Garden lands, was a law churchman, who disliked Gothic style and he told Jones to make the church as simple as a barn. Jones is said to have replied “You'll have the handsomest barn in England, and that is what the building most resembles.” 

The Mansion House in the City of London, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City. This is another classical monument, built in 1739 - 1752. 

The Bank of England, designed by Sir John Soane, resembles nothing so much as a fortress; at street level there are no doors or windows in the massive stone walls. It was designed to reinforce the idea of rocksolid security. The upper part of the building is symmetrically decorated with columns and statues in a typically classical way. 

St. Paul's Cathedral is one of London's most awe-inspiring sights, its dome is the third largest in the world and its graceful bulk is an important feature on the City skyline. Wren's original design for rebuilding St. Paul's was based on High Renaissance ideas of Greek Cross design.  

  

Gothic architecture 

The Houses of Parliament or the Palace of Westminster was built in 1049 by Edward the Confessor and used as the main royal residence in London until 1529, when Henry VIII decided to move northwards to the Palace of Whitehall. Fire destroyed most of the old Palace of Westminster in 1834. A public competition was held to choose an architect for the new building. From 97 entries, Charles Barry's design was chosen as the winner and he brought in A.W. Pugin, the expert on authentic Gothic detailing, to assist him. The result is a palatial building in the Tudor Perpendicular style. 

Westminster Abbey. The present building was begun by Edward the Confessor around 1050. He died a week after its consecration, on 6 January, 1066 and was the first monarch to be buried there. The building was greatly influenced by the French Gothic cathedrals of Amiens and Reims. In 1503 the Lady Chapel at the east end was replaced by the Henry VII chapel, the architectural high point of the church. The west front was not completed until 1745, when the two towers were built to Nicholas Hawksmoor's design. 

The Natural History Museum is housed in a suitably splendid building of cathedral-like proportions, plans for which were drawn in 1862, only three years after Darwin published “The Origin of species.” It sparked off a fierce debate between scientists who supported evolutionary theory and those who insisted on Biblical version of the Creation. The debate even influenced the style of the building: purists maintained that the neo-Gothic style, then in vogue, should be reserved for places of worship, and not employed for secular buildings. The architect, Alfred Waterhouse, chose a style that was less familiar to the British and sidestepped the problem by looking to French Romanesque architecture for his inspiration. The building is clad in a bravura display of coloured terra cotta with relief depicting animals, fossils, plants and insects. 

All Souls Church was built in 1822 -1824 by John Nash - his only church - as an “eye stopper.” The Church was ridiculed in its time because Nash mixed together a classical portico with a Gothic spire. But the combination works well. 

The Temple takes its name from the Knights Templar, the crusading order whose 12^th-century round church survives at the heart of the network of alley and courtyards of Fleet Street in the City of London. “The Round” was built at the point of transition between Romanesque and Gothic architecture. Looking up, you will see that the triforium has Romanesque-intersecting arches, but the arches themselves are pointed in the Gothic style rather than rounded.

Other unique and peculiar examples of different styles of architecture. 

Westminster Cathedral. This exuberant Byzantine-style building is the principal Roman Catholic church in England, the seat of the Archbishop of Westminster. It was begun in 1895 but remains unfinished. The main attraction here is the superb campanile built, like the rest of the church, of brick alternating with bands of Portland stone and which in 83m (272ft) high. 

The Russel Hotel in Bloomsbury is a great Victorian landmark. 

The South Bank arts complex, the windowless buildings of weather-stained concrete, were built in the Brutalist style of 1960s, bold but brutal. 

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was completed in 1997 by Sam Wanamaker after the rebuilding of Shakespeare's Globe (originally erected in 1599). Late 16^th-century construction techniques were used and the circular building (known as “the wooden O”) with a thatched roof  was built. 

Canary Wharf in Docklands is a staggering monument to the optimism of the 1980s. The massive structure of 244m high (Europe's second highest building) dominates the east and south London skyline. 

The Barbican Centre was finally complete in 1981. There is a joke among Londoners that one you penetrate various buildings are linked by a confusing maze of tunnels, elevated walkways and staircases. 

Timber-framed houses of the 14^th - 15^th centuries represent famous Tudor style in architecture. 

The Lloyd's building, completed in 1966, is one of London's most exciting and controversial modern building. Designed by Richard Rogers (who also designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris) it is a daring building all of glass entwined in steel ventilation shafts, cranes, gantries, service pods and staircases. The building is especially thrilling to see at night, when it glows a strange green and purple from concealed coloured spotlights, creating a space-age effect. 

The London Central Mosque, with its splendid dome and minaret, was designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd and opened in 1978 as the principal Islamic mosque in Britain. 

XVI. Answer the questions:

1. Are you keen on architecture?
2. Which styles of architecture appeal to you?
3. Can you name London's buildings designed in Gothic style?
4. What peculiarities of Gothic style do you know?
5. Are there buildings in London, which were designed in classical style? What are they?
6. What other buildings attracted your attention? Why?
7. What defines classical style in architecture?
8. Can you compare any buildings of your native place with those of London's ones?
9. Name the architects who created masterpieces of London?
10. What place in London would you visit first of all, if you came there?

 

   

  UNIT 4 

SCULPTURE IN BRITAIN 

What do you think about sculpture? It's worth seeing and enjoying, isn't it? Read the text about the opinion of Henry Moore, a sculptor of early twenties of the 20^th century, about sculpture.

From “Art in England”

By Henry Moore

…Appreciation of sculpture depends on the ability to respond to form in three dimensions. That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts. Many more people are “form-blind” than “colour-blind.” Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence. This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He mentally visualised a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like; he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realised its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air. 

And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel the shape. 

It might seem from what I said of shape and form that I regard them as ends in themselves. Far from it I am very much aware that associational, psychological factors play a large part in sculpture. T think the humanist organic element will always be for me of fundamental importance in sculpture, giving sculpture its vitality…        

         I. Read the words:

medieval [med5`i*v1l] средневековый

to survive [s1va5v] пережить, выжить

carving [`ka*v5%] резьба

tomb [tu*m] могила

cross [kr4s] крест 

II. Read the text: 

Much medieval sculpture was in churches and was destroyed by the Puritans in the 17^th century. However, many Celtic and Anglo-Saxon stone crosses from the 7^th to the 11^th centuries have survived and many Norman churches have rich carvings. One of the best examples of Gothic sculpture in England is the west front of Wells Cathedral. There are 13^th and 15^th century tombs at Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral. The only work produced in the 16^th and early 17^th century is tomb-sculpture, often of alabaster and brightly coloured. Later in the 17^th century, Grinling Gibbons did elegant decorative work, mostly in wood in private houses as well as public buildings. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries sculpture became simpler, in the neo-classical style. The leading sculptors of that time were Sir Richard Westmacott and John Flaxman. Later Victorian sculpture tends to vary between the over-realistic and the over-simplified. In the 20^th century, Jacob Epstein is best known for his portrait bronzes. The modern movement in sculpture is represented by Eric Gill, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Other sculptors working in abstract styles include Reg Butler, Antony Caro, Philip King and others.   

III. Say that you have heard, read the same. Say that you know it too.

1. I've read that much medieval sculpture was in churches and was destroyed by the Puritans in the 17^th century.
2. I've heard that many Celtic and Anglo-Saxon stone crosses have survived.
3. I know that many Norman churches have rich carvings.
4. I've read that there are 13^th and 15^th century tombs at Westminster Abbey.
5. I've heard that the only work produced in the 16^th and early 17^th century is tomb sculpture, often of alabaster and brightly coloured.
6. I know that in the 18^th and 19^th centuries sculpture became simpler.
7. I've read that later Victorian sculpture tends to vary between the over-realistic and the over-simplified.
8. I know that in the 20^th century, Jacob Epstein is best-known for his portrait bronzes.
9. I've read that the modern movement in sculpture is represented by Eric Gill, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.
10. I've read that other sculptors working in abstract styles include Reg Butler, Antony Caro, Philip King and others.