Abstract: Why is Pevsner a problem for British architectural historians? David Watkin singled him out for attention, devoting Part 3 of Morality and Architecture to him (Clarendon Press, 1977). Watkin held Pevsner to task for his transmission of German Geistesgeschichte into the British architectural scene while rightly criticizing him for his deterministic use of the Zeitgeist argument in support of the Modern Movement. He noted that Pevsner's conclusion, that modern architecture should express ‘… a world of science and technique, of speed and danger, of hard struggles and no personal security …’ (Pioneers of the Modern Movement, Faber & Faber, 1936, p. 207), ‘reminds us of the pervasiveness of the collectivist outlook and of its affinities with Bolshevism and National Socialism, neither of which Pevsner would have wished to identify himself with’ (Watkin, p. 95). Starting from a similar premise, Timothy Mowl gave us a more human and intimate...
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 19
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