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A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Architectural history from eye-level: Nikolaus Pevsner's ‘Treasure Hunts’ in the Architectural Review, 1942
In 1942, Nikolaus Pevsner published a series of articles in the Architectural Review that he called ‘Treasure Hunts’. Discussing mostly obscure, and often unpopular, buildings of the last hundred years, Pevsner jovially invited readers to join him in a game to ‘Date your District’. Instantly recognisable through bubble-shaped detail photographs and with a mixture of cheerful language and dense art-historical analysis, these articles present a unique opportunity within Pevsner's often-examined oeuvre to explore word-image relationships and their appeal to the lay public. The present article analyses the use of typography, layout and photography in the Treasure Hunts and relates them to two specific modes of writing, analysis and ‘pictorial criticism’, a term coined by James M. Richards. Both verbal and graphic elements of the Treasure Hunts work by contrasting overviews to close-ups, imitating human vision and intellectual cognition and, by doing so, facilitate the education of the lay public in visually reading—and enjoying—buildings, their proclaimed aim. Thus, Pevsner established an architectural history from eye-level that relied on natural vision paired with art-historical method, bred and shaped through his German training, applied in a distinctly English context, and refined later in his Buildings of England.
Architectural history from eye-level: Nikolaus Pevsner's ‘Treasure Hunts’ in the Architectural Review, 1942
In 1942, Nikolaus Pevsner published a series of articles in the Architectural Review that he called ‘Treasure Hunts’. Discussing mostly obscure, and often unpopular, buildings of the last hundred years, Pevsner jovially invited readers to join him in a game to ‘Date your District’. Instantly recognisable through bubble-shaped detail photographs and with a mixture of cheerful language and dense art-historical analysis, these articles present a unique opportunity within Pevsner's often-examined oeuvre to explore word-image relationships and their appeal to the lay public. The present article analyses the use of typography, layout and photography in the Treasure Hunts and relates them to two specific modes of writing, analysis and ‘pictorial criticism’, a term coined by James M. Richards. Both verbal and graphic elements of the Treasure Hunts work by contrasting overviews to close-ups, imitating human vision and intellectual cognition and, by doing so, facilitate the education of the lay public in visually reading—and enjoying—buildings, their proclaimed aim. Thus, Pevsner established an architectural history from eye-level that relied on natural vision paired with art-historical method, bred and shaped through his German training, applied in a distinctly English context, and refined later in his Buildings of England.
Architectural history from eye-level: Nikolaus Pevsner's ‘Treasure Hunts’ in the Architectural Review, 1942
Hultzsch, Anne (author)
The Journal of Architecture ; 19 ; 382-401
2014-05-04
20 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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