Sir Nikolaus Pevsner CBE (January 30, 1902 – August 18, 1983) was a German-born British historian of art and, especially, architecture. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire (Military division) The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority... January 30 is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1902 (MCMII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... August 18 is the 230th day of the year (231st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Art history usually refers to the history of the visual arts. ... The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece Architecture (from Latin, architectura and ultimately from Greek, αρχιτεκτων, a master builder, from αρχι- chief, leader and τεκτων, builder, carpenter) is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. ...

The son of a Jewish merchant, Pevsner was born in Leipzig, Saxony. He studied art history at the Universities of Leipzig, Munich, Berlin, and Frankfurt/Main in Germany (PhD 1924), worked at the Dresden Gallery (1924–28) and taught at Göttingen University (1929–33). In 1934, he moved to England to escape Nazism and taught at London, Oxford, Birmingham and Cambridge universities. He assumed British citizenship in 1946. This article describes some ethnic, historic, and cultural aspects of the Jewish identity; for a consideration of the Jewish religion, refer to the article Judaism. ... [] (Sorbian/Lusatian: Lipsk) is the largest city in the Federal State (Bundesland) of Saxony in Germany. ... The Free State of Saxony (German: Freistaat Sachsen; Sorbian: Swobodny Stat Sakska) is a federal state of Germany. ... This article is about the academic discipline of art history. ... [] (Sorbian/Lusatian: Lipsk) is the largest city in the Federal State (Bundesland) of Saxony in Germany. ... Munich: Frauenkirche and Town Hall steeple Munich: St. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... Frankfurt am Main [ˈfraŋkfʊrt] is the largest city in the German state of Hessen and the fifth largest city of Germany. ... For other uses, see Dresden (disambiguation). ... Göttingen ( ) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... The University of London is a university based primarily in London. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Website http://www. ... The University of Cambridge, located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, with a reputation as one of the worlds most prestigious universities. ...

He is best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England (1951-74), one of the great achievements of 20th-century art scholarship.

Pevsner conceived and edited the Pelican History of Art series (1953–), many individual volumes of which are regarded as classics.

In 1958, Pevsner was a founder member of The Victorian Society, the national charity for the study and protection and Victorian and Edwardian architecture and other arts. He was also an early an active member of the Georgian Group founded in 1937. The Victorian Society is the national charity responsible for the study and protection of Victorian and Edwardian architecture and other arts in Britain. ... Georgian Group English and Welsh conservation organisation created to campaign for the preservation of historic buildings and planned landscapes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. ...

He died in London. This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ...

Research papers and correspondence relating to Pevsner's first job in a British university, after leaving Germany, can be found at the University of Birmingham Special Collections but are as yet uncatalogued. Website http://www. ...

Famous Ideas and Theories

• "A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture. Nearly everything that encloses space on a scale sufficient for a human being to move in is a building; the term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal."

From An Outline of European Architecture, 1943. Pevsner also described the three ways aesthetic appeal could manifest itself in architecture: in a building's façade, the material volumes or the interior.

Selected bibliography

• Academies of Art, Past and Present (1940)
• An Outline of European Architecture (1943)
• Pioneers of Modern Design (1949; originally published in 1936 under the title Pioneers of the Modern Movement)
• The Buildings of England (1951-74)
• The Englishness of English Art (1956)
• The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design (1968)
• A History of Building Types (1976)

The Buildings of England

After moving to England, Pevsner found that the study of architectural history had little status in academic circles, and the amount of information available, especially to travellers wanting to inform themselves about the architecture of a particular district, was limited. He conceived a project to write a series of comprehensive county guides to rectify this, and gained the backing of Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, for whom he had written his Outline of European Architecture. Work on the series began in 1945. Lane employed two part-time assistants, both German refugee art historians, who prepared notes for Pevsner from published sources. Pevsner spent the academic holidays touring the country to make personal observations and carry out local research, before writing up the finished volumes. The first volume was published in 1951. Pevsner wrote 32 of the books himself and 10 with collaborators, with a further 4 of the original series written by others. Since his death, work has continued on the series, with several volumes now in their third revision. Sir Allen Lane (21 September 1902–7 July 1970) (born Allen Lane Williams), was a British publisher who founded Penguin Books bringing high quality, paperback fiction and non-fiction to a mass market. ... Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. ...

The books are compact and intended to meet the needs of both specialists and the general reader. Each contains an extensive introduction to the architectural history and styles of the area, followed by a town-by-town - and in the case of larger settlements, street-by-street - account of individual buildings. The guides offer both detailed coverage of the most notable buildings and notes on lesser-known and vernacular buildings; all building types are covered but there is a particular emphasis on churches and public buildings. Each volume has a central section with several dozen pages of photographs, originally in black and white, though colour illustrations have featured in revised volumes since 2003. Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorise a method of construction which uses locally available resources to address local needs. ...

The list below is of the volumes that were in print in 2006. The original volumes are gradually being replaced with new editions in a larger format, updated to reflect architectural-history scholarship since the first publications of the guides and to include significant new buildings. The dates after each title are of the first publication and of any revised edition. All are now published by the Yale University Press. The volumes for Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, the London City Churches, Manchester and Sheffield are part of the parallel "Pevsner City Guides" series, a more heavily illustrated paperback format. Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908. ...

• Bath (2003) (Michael Forsyth) ISBN 0-300-10177-5
• Bedfordshire, Huntingdon & Peterborough (1968) ISBN 0-300-09581-3
• Berkshire (1966) ISBN 0-300-09582-1
• Buckinghamshire (1960;1994) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson) ISBN 0-300-09584-8
• Cambridgeshire (1954;1970) ISBN 0-300-09586-4
• Cheshire (1971) ISBN 0-300-09588-0 (with Edward Hubbard)
• Cornwall (1951;1970) (rev. Enid Radclffe) ISBN 0-300-09589-9
• County Durham (1953;1983) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson) ISBN 0-300-09599-6
• Cumberland & Westmorland (1967) ISBN 0-300-09590-2
• Derbyshire (1953;1978) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson) ISBN 0-300-09591-0
• Devon (1952;1989) ISBN 0-300-09596-1
• Dorset (1972) ISBN 0-300-09598-8 (with John Newman)
• Essex (1954;1965) (rev. Enid Radcliffe) ISBN 0-300-09601-1
• Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds (1970;1999) (David Verey, rev. Alan Brooks) ISBN 0-300-09604-6
• Gloucestershire: The Vale & Forest of Dean (1970;2002) (David Verey, rev. Alan Brooks) ISBN 0-300-09733-6
• The Isle of Wight (2006) ISBN 0-300-10733-1 (with David Wharton Lloyd)
• Hampshire & The Isle of Wight (1967) ISBN 0-300-09606-2 (with David Wharton Lloyd)
• Herefordshire (1963) ISBN 0-300-09609-7
• Hertfordshire (1953;1977) (rev. Bridget Cherry) ISBN 0-300-09611-9
• Kent: North East & East (1969;1983) (John Newman) ISBN 0-300-09613-5
• Kent: West & the Weald (1969;1976) (John Newman) ISBN 0-300-09614-3
• Lancashire: Liverpool & the South-West (2006) ISBN 0-300-10910-5 (with Richard Pollard)
• Lancashire: Manchester & the South-East (2004) ISBN 0-300-10583-5 (with Clare Hartwell and Matthew Hyde)
• North Lancashire (1969) ISBN 0-300-09617-8
• Leicestershire & Rutland (1960;1984) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson) ISBN 0-300-09618-6
• Lincolnshire (1964;1989) (with John Harris, rev. Nicholas Antram) ISBN 0-300-09620-8
• Liverpool (2003) (Joseph Sharples) ISBN 0-300-10258-5
• London 1: The City of London (1997) ISBN 0-300-09624-0 (with Simon Bradley)
• London 2: South (1983) ISBN 0-300-09651-8 (with Bridget Cherry)
• London 3: North-West (1991) ISBN 0-300-09652-6 (with Bridget Cherry)
• London 4: North (1998) ISBN 0-300-09653-4 (with Bridget Cherry)
• London 5: East (2004) ISBN 0-300-10701-3 (with Bridget Cherry and Charles O'Brien)
• London 6: Westminster (2003) ISBN 0-300-09595-3 (with Simon Bradley)
• London City Churches (1998) (Simon Bradley) ISBN 0-300-09655-0
• Manchester (2001) (Clare Hartwell) ISBN 0-300-09666-6
• Norfolk 1: Norwich & North East (1962;1997) (rev. Bill Wilson) ISBN 0-300-09607-0
• Norfolk 2: South & West (1962;1999) (rev. Bill Wilson) ISBN 0-300-09657-7
• Northamptonshire (1961;1973) (rev. Bridget Cherry) ISBN 0-300-09632-1
• Northumberland (1957;1992) ISBN 0-300-09638-0 (with Ian A. Richmond, rev. John Grundy, Grace McCombie, Peter Ryder and Humphrey Welfare)
• Nottinghamshire (1951;1979) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson) ISBN 0-300-09636-4
• Oxfordshire (1974) ISBN 0-300-09639-9 (with Jennifer Sherwood)
• Sheffield (2004) (Ruth Harman and John Minnis) ISBN 0-300-10585-1
• Shropshire (1958;2006) (rev. John Newman) ISBN 0-300-12083-4
• Somerset: North & Bristol (1958) ISBN 0-300-09640-2
• Somerset: South & West (1958) ISBN 0-300-09644-5
• Staffordshire (1974) ISBN 0-14-071046-9
• Suffolk (1961;1974) (rev. Enid Radcliffe) ISBN 0-300-09648-8
• Surrey (1962;1971) (with Ian Nairn, rev. Bridget Cherry) ISBN 0-300-09675-5
• Sussex (1965) ISBN 0-300-09677-1 (with Ian Nairn)
• Warwickshire (1966) ISBN 0-300-09679-8 (with Alexandra Wedgwood)
• Wiltshire (1963;1975) (rev. Bridget Cherry) ISBN 0-300-09659-3
• Worcestershire (1968) ISBN 0-300-09660-7
• Yorkshire: The North Riding (1966) ISBN 0-300-09665-8
• Yorkshire: The West Riding (1959;1967) (rev. Enid Radcliffe) ISBN 0-300-09662-3
• Yorkshire: York & East Riding (1972;1995) (rev. David Neave) ISBN 0-300-09593-7

Ian Nairn (born 1930, died 15 August 1983) was a British architectural critic and topographer. ...

The Buildings of Scotland

The series continued under Pevsner's name into Scotland. The format is largely similar, however only Lothian was published in the original small volume style. One noticeable difference in the Scottish series is a greater subdivision of the main gazetteer (e.g. in Argyll and Bute mainland Argyll has separate gazetteer from its islands, and Bute similarly is treated on its own). As with the English revisions, several of the volumes are the work of many contributors. As of 2006, the series is four volumes from completion.

• Aberdeen and North-East Scotland (in preparation)
• Argyll and Bute (2000) ISBN 0-300-09670-4 (Frank Arneil Walker)
• Ayrshire and Arran (in preparation)
• Borders (2006) ISBN 0-300-10702-1 (Kitty Cruft, John Dunbar and Richard Fawcett)
• Dumfries and Galloway (1996) ISBN 0-300-09671-2 (John Gifford)
• Dundee and Angus (in preparation)
• Edinburgh (1984) ISBN 0-200-09672-0 (John Gifford, Colin McWilliam and David Walker)
• Fife (1988) ISBN 0-300-09673-9 (John Gifford)
• Glasgow (1990) ISBN 0-300-09674-7 (Elizabeth Williamson, Anne Riches and Malcolm Higgs)
• Highland and Islands (1992) ISBN 0-300-09625-9 (John Gifford)
• Lothian, except Edinburgh (1978) ISBN 0-300-09626-7 (Colin McWilliam)
• Perth and Kinross (2006) ISBN 0-300-10922-9 (John Gifford)
• Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire (in preparation)
• Stirling and Central Scotland (2002) ISBN 0-300-09594-5 (John Gifford and Frank Arneil Walker)

Colin McWilliam (1928 - 1989) was an English architecture academic and author. ...

The Buildings of Wales

The series has also been extended to Wales.

• Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion (2006) ISBN 0-300-10179-1 (Thomas Lloyd)
• Clwyd (1986) ISBN 0-300-09627-5 (Edward Hubbard)
• Glamorgan (1995) ISBN 0-300-09629-1 (John Newman)
• Gwent/Monmouthshire (2000) ISBN 0-300-09630-5 (John Newman)
• Gwynedd (research in progress)
• Pembrokeshire (2004) ISBN 0-300-10178-3 Thomas Lloyd, Julian Orbach and Robert Scourfield)
• Powys (1979) ISBN 0-300-09631-3 (Richard Haslam)

The Buildings of Ireland

The Irish series is not so far advanced as the others. However the following have been published or are being prepared.

• Dublin (2006) (Christine Casey)
• North-West Ulster: the Counties of Londonderry, Donegal, Fermanagh & Tyrone (1979) ISBN 0-300-09667-4 (Alistair Rowan)
• North Leinster (1993) ISBN 0-300-09668-2 (Alistair Rowan and Christine Casey)

Superseded Volumes

The revision of the series has rendered some original volumes obsolete, usually as the area of coverage has expanded. To date the following volumes have been superseded:

• London: the Cities of London and Westminster (1957)
• London, except the Cities of London and Westminster (1952)
• London Docklands (1998) (with Elizabeth Williamson)
• Middlesex (1951)
• South Lancashire (1969) ISBN 0-14-071036-1

In addition, two volumes, North Devon and South Devon were superseded by a single volume covering the entire county.

See also

• Survey of London - an even more detailed but incomplete account of the architecture of London.

The Survey of London is an ongoing project to produce a very thorough historical and architectural survey of the former County of London. ...

External links

• Pevsner Architectural Guides
• Looking At Buildings
• The Victorian Society
• Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–1983)
• Pevsner the German: text of lecture