Victorian architecture

The 19th century saw a fragmentation of English architecture, as Classical forms continued in widespread use but were challenged by a series of distinctively English revivals of other styles, drawing chiefly on Gothic, Renaissance and vernacular traditions but incorporating other elements as well. This ongoing historicism was counter-posed by a resumption of technical innovation, which had been largely in abeyance since the Renaissance but was now fuelled by new materials and techniques derived from the Industrial Revolution, particularly the use of iron and steel frames, and by the demand for new types of building. The rapid growth and urbanization of the population entailed an immense amount of new domestic and commercial construction, while the same processes combined with a religious revival to bring about a resumption of widespread church building. Mechanised manufacturing, railways and public utilities required new forms of building, while the new industrial cities invested heavily in grand civic buildings and the huge expansion and diversification of educational, cultural and leisure activities likewise created new demands on architecture.

The Gothic revival was a development which emerged in England and whose influence, except in church building, was largely restricted to the English-speaking world. It had begun on a small scale in the 18th century under the stimulus of Romanticism, a trend initiated by Horace Walpole's house Strawberry Hill (the Gothic Revival villa that was built in Twickenham, London in 1749).

However, widespread Gothic construction began only in the 19th century, led by the renewal of church building but spreading to secular construction. Early Gothic revival architecture was whimsical and unsystematic, but in the Victorian era the revival developed an abstract rigour and became a movement driven by cultural, religious and social concerns which extended far beyond architecture, seeing the Gothic style and the medieval way of life as a route to the spiritual regeneration of society. The first great ideologue of this movement was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, who together with Charles Barry designed the new Houses of Parliament, the grandest work of Victorian Gothic architecture.

The Parliament building's perpendicular style reflects the predominance of the later forms of English Gothic in the early Victorian period, but this later gave way to a preference for plain Early English or French Gothic, and above all to a style derived from the architecture of medieval Italy and the Low Countries (the coastal region of north western Europe, consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers where much of the land is at or below sea level). This High Victorian Gothic was driven chiefly by the writings of John Ruskin, based on his observations of the buildings of Venice, while its archetypal practitioner was the church architect William Butterfield. It was characterised by heavy massing, sparse use of tracery or sculptural decoration and an emphasis on polychrome patterning created through the use of different colours of brick and stone. The Gothic revival also drove a widespread effort to restore deteriorating medieval churches, a practice which often went beyond restoration to involve extensive reconstruction. The most active exponent of this activity was also the most prolific designer of new Gothic buildings, George Gilbert Scott, whose work is exemplified by St. Pancras Station. Other leading Victorian Gothic architects included G. E. Street, J. F. Pearson and G. F. Bodley.

The Victorian period also saw a revival of interest in English vernacular building traditions, focusing chiefly on domestic architecture and employing features such as half-timbering and tile-hanging, whose leading practitioner was Richard Norman Shaw. This development too was shaped by much wider ideological considerations, strongly influenced by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement. While its ethos shared much with the Gothic revival, its preoccupations were less religious and were connected with romantic socialism and a distaste for industrialisation and urban life. In the later 19th century vernacular elements mingled with forms drawn from the Renaissance architecture of England and the Low Countries to produce a synthesis dubbed the Queen Anne Style, which in fact bore very little resemblance to the architecture of that reign. While some architects of the period were ideologically committed to a particular manner, a tendency personified by Pugin, others were happy to move between styles. An exemplar of this approach was Alfred Waterhouse, whose works included buildings in Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance styles and eclectic fusions between them.

The new technology of iron and steel frame construction exerted an influence over many forms of building, although its use was often masked by traditional forms. It was highly prominent in two of the new forms of building that characterised Victorian architecture, railway station train sheds and glasshouses. The greatest exponent of the latter was Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal Palace.

In the 18th century a few English architects had emigrated to the colonies, but as the British Empire became firmly established in the 19th century many architects at the start of their careers made the decision to emigrate, several chose the USA but most went to Canada,Australia or New Zealand, as opportunities arose to meet the growing demand for buildings in these countries. Normally they adopted the style of architecture fashionable when they left England, though by the latter half of the century, improving transport and communications meant that even quite remote parts of the Empire had access to many publications, such as The Builder magazine. This enabled colonial architects to stay abreast of current fashion. Thus the influence of English architecture spread across the world. Several prominent 19th century architects produced designs that were executed by architects in the various colonies. For example Sir George Gilbert Scott designed Bombay University& William Butterfield designed St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide. (6500)

The Shard

The Shard, also referred to as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge and formerly London Bridge Tower, is a 72-storey skyscraper in London. Its construction began in March 2009; it was topped out on 30 March 2012 and inaugurated on 5 July 2012. It opened to the public on 1 February 2013. Standing 309.6 metres (1,016 ft) high, the Shard is the tallest building in the European Union. It is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, after the concrete tower at the Emley Moor transmitting station.

The Shard replaced Southwark Towers, a 24-storey office block built on the site inSouthwark in 1975. Renzo Piano, the Shard's architect, worked with the architectural firmBroadway Malyan during the planning stage. The glass-clad pyramidal tower has 72 habitable floors, with a viewing gallery and open-air observation deck – the UK's highest – on the 72nd floor, at a height of 244.3 metres (802 ft).

The Shard contains premium office space, a hotel, luxury residences, retail space, restaurants, a five-story public viewing gallery, and a spa. The public viewing gallery is located between the 68th and 72nd floors, with its highest section at a height of 245 metres (804 ft), and is expected to draw over two million visitors a year. (1300)