Creating a Gothic Paradise: Pugin at the Antipodes

by Brian Andrews

. "Pugin died insane at the age of 40, having produced over a hundred buildings and thousands of designs for unbuilt projects, furniture, metalwork, stained glass, ceramic tiles, wallpaper, textiles, jewellery and book illustration, as well as having written and illustrated thirteen books, notably the influential Constrasts and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture. He transformed architecture and design in England, forming the starting point for High Victorian Gothic as well as William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, and he had considerable influence in mainland Europe. The impact of his theoretical writings extends into the twentieth century and can still be discerned today. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was an astonishing, tragic, but thoroughly engaging fanatical genius. Brought up and educated at home by his eccentric antiquarian father and radical forceful mother, he knew as much as anyone in England about Gothic construction when, by the age of fifteen, he designed furniture for the refurbishment of Windsor Castle and silver plate for the Royal Goldsmiths. In his late teens he was a scenery designer for West End theatres, including Covent Garden, ran a interior furnishing business and was bankrupted, was briefly imprisoned for debt, and was shipwrecked and nearly drowned in his own boat off the coast of Scotland. By 1832, at the age of twenty, he had been married and widowed, leaving him with no money and a baby daughter, and by the following year both his parents were dead. This life crisis and a small legacy from an aunt apparently provided the impetus for his subsequent independent practice (supported by his later wives and family) which was fanatically devoted to the revival of Gothic architecture and design, in the service of the remaking of a Christian Catholic society. Enthusiastic, talkative, completely unpretentious and often dressed in a working sailor's clothes, Pugin seems to have been a most likable character. 'There is nothing worth living for but christian architecture and a boat', he once announced. He maintained a 30 ton lugger which he used to rescue shipwrecked sailors off the coast within sight of his home on the cliffs at Ramsgate, while also supplementing his income with salvage operations. On his European travels he took minimal luggage and carried his essential equipment in his capacious pockets, so that he was always ready to sketch some medieval detail - perhaps the inspiration for Australian architect Horbury Hunt's similar dress habits. Pugin practised largely on his own, often singing while he worked, in his house at Ramsgate, with the help of his third wife and, from 1845, his one male pupil, John Hardman Powell, the nephew of his friend, the metal and glass manufacturer John Hardman.Through Archbishop Polding and Bishop Willson, Pugin's determination to promote Gothic as the only style that was a true representation of Christian values extended to the Antipodes, much to Pugin's expressed delight. Bishop Willson took with him to Tasmania a collection of Pugin-designed artefacts, many of simple design to suit limited funds, to form the basis of a Catholic see entirely modelled on medieval English precedent 'a new' Gothic Paradise at the Antipodes.

246 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002