A. W. N. Pugin: God's Architect?

Was the Gothic Revival only a passing trend, or was there something more to it?
David Lewis discusses the life, architecture, and legacy of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin with Duncan Stroik.

[@coolhandphilip]

Stroik is today's Pugin. Sure, Duncan is a Classicist, but the genius and historical influence are comparable.

[@JamesPink-j2k]

I am lucky enough to live in the Gothic Revival gatehouse to Ettington Park (1835) in Warwickshire. The gatehouse was built in 1862 according to the date stone, and features a wealth of Pugin design details. We have restored and extended it, retaining all the original features and will feature with it's own entry in the revised Pevsner historic buildings of Warwickshire.

[@coolhandphilip]

I'm going to have a statue of Stroik carved into the mantlepiece of my office in St. Louis.

[@coolhandphilip]

Why doesn't Cram's chapel at Princeton have a spire?

[@stephenchelius7461]

Great video! I had been reading up on Pugin recently in my search for more information on the Gothic Style and low and behold, I know exactly what book to buy now! Thank you.

[@Thicketworks]

This discussion is very appreciated. I stand with Pugin and his unacceptable views. The debased 'culture' in which we are embedded requires us to embrace a very pluralistic/globalist/inclusive POV when it comes to every area of human endeavor. The fact that he was so adamant in his belief that Gothic was the true Christian expression of form and his rejection of classicism as pagan and ultimately foreign to Christian principles is a testament to his faith. Had we taken these ideas more seriously, humanity might have been spared the plague of pelestential brutalist sensibilities that have defaced the 20/21st centuries public/corporate spaces. Here's to Pugin, and to being stubbornly principled in the face of censure, pressure to conform and hierarchical displeasure for the glory of God! I suspect many of us yearn for a spiritualised Christian industrial society, and despair at the cultural licentiousness that pervades our communities and institutions. Many, of course, do NOT. While the forces of chaotic/abstract postmodernism currently prevail, perhaps it will not always be so.

[@RingerStudio]

Doesn't the modern architecture movement claim Pugin as an a proto-modernist? I think it has more to do with his dogmatic philosophy than anything, but if any knows....

[@susanross1651]

I think if Pugin had lived to see the horrors of modern architecture in the ‘60s & ‘70s he would have been devastated. I saw so many beautiful buildings destroyed in that period for glass & concrete monstrosities that were so ugly it was unbelievable & most didn’t survive even 50 years before they were demolished to be replaced with something not much better.

[@acermouse2]

Wonderful interview, it really goes through the genius and controversy of such a celebrated architect. Since Pugin loved to use modern means with historic symbolism, I'd love to see things such an cars, planes, or smartphones using his gothic symbolism.

[@martymountebank5995]

His Margate home is a treasure. Avant!

[@Paseosguiados]

Thank you so much for this video, Thanks for the information provided.

[@kphs5764]

Why are universities like Yale and Princeton still building in the Gothic style? Because they have the endowments. Churches, by contrast, can barely afford to keep the lights on.

[@coolhandphilip]

Princeton is building modern now. Yale is building neo-neo-gothic. Princeton is becoming an ugly place.

[@susanross1651]

I love Pugin, his architecture is amazing, he is truly the God of gothic. I think we all benefit from looking at beauty, be it in buildings or nature, & his buildings are truly beautiful.

[@anthonyhulse1248]

Coming from Manchester I visited many of Pugin’s churches.

[@coolhandphilip]

I converted to Catholicism because I once knelt on a Neo-Gothic prie dieu...?

[@allarchitect]

😆

[@dalecaldwell]

It is kinda fascinating that Pugin died in a house very much part of his general architectural program while Corbu died in a little log cabin. (Need I cite the obvious assault on beauty that has come from Vatican II?)

[@michaelhass7783]

It seems to me like there is a spectrum of beauty from modernist to… something (baroque or gothic or classical maybe?). But would you say that there is a minimum threshold that needs to be crossed for a given building type (church, education, business, home)?

[@coolhandphilip]

Modernist beauty you say? Like multiplying by zero?

[@michaelhass7783]

Haha! Yes exactly, the spectrum approaches zero as it gets closer to modernism. 😂