author
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
1812–1852
A driving force behind the Gothic Revival, he brought medieval forms and ideas back into 19th-century architecture with unusual energy and conviction. Best known for his work on the Palace of Westminster and for his fiercely argued books, he left a mark far bigger than his short life might suggest.
1 Audiobook
A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts Their Antiquity, Use, and Symbolic Signification
by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
About the author
Born in London in 1812, Pugin trained early through his father, the architectural draughtsman Augustus Charles Pugin. He became an architect, designer, artist, and writer, and is widely remembered as one of the central figures of the Gothic Revival in Britain.
His work ranged from churches and interiors to furniture and decorative design, but he is especially associated with the Gothic detailing of the Palace of Westminster. He was also a passionate critic and theorist who argued that medieval Gothic architecture expressed a more honest and Christian social order than the styles fashionable in his own day.
Pugin died in 1852 at just 40 years old, yet his influence was lasting. Through both buildings and books, he helped shape Victorian taste and changed the way many people thought about architecture, design, and the relationship between beauty, craft, and belief.