Augustus Pugin

There is nothing worth living for but Christian Architecture and a boat.

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1 March 1812 – 14 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. His work culminated in designing the interior of the Palace of Westminster in Westminster, London, and its clock tower, the Elizabeth Tower (formerly St. Stephen's Tower), which houses the bell known as Big Ben. Pugin designed many churches in England, and some in Ireland and Australia. He was the son of Auguste Pugin, and the father of Edward Welby Pugin, Cuthbert Welby Pugin, and Peter Paul Pugin, who continued his architectural and interior design firm as Pugin & Pugin.

Quotes

• [I have] seen the fallacy of the new sects and trust ere long I shall be united in the original and apostolick church which suffers no change or variation. I trust no man will attribute my motives solely to my love for antient architecture for although I will allow the change has been brought about in me owing to my studies of antient art yet I have still higher reasons.
  • Letter to E. J. Wilson (17 September 1834), quoted in Phoebe B. Stanton, 'Barry and Pugin: A Collaboration', in M. H. Port (ed.), The Houses of Parliament (1976), p. 58

• The object of the present Lecture is to set forth and explain the true principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, by the knowledge of which you may be enabled to test architectural excellence. The two great rules for design are these: 1st, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety; 2nd, that all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building.
  • The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture: Set Forth in Two Lectures delivered at St. Marie's, Oscott (1841), p. 1

• I am so anxious to introduce a sensible style of furniture of good oak and constructively put together that shall compete with the vile trash made and sold. These things are very simple and I am certain with a little patience can be made to pay.
  • Letter to John Crace (1849), quoted in Phoebe B. Stanton, 'Pugin: Principles of Design versus Revivalism', Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 13, No. 3 (October 1954), p. 24

Undated

• There is nothing worth living for but Christian Architecture and a boat.
  • The Builder, Vol. X, No. 503 (25 September 1852), p. 605

Quotes about Augustus Pugin

• The new Cheadle Church, which is to be consecrated on Sept I, is the most splendid building I ever saw. It is coloured inside every inch in the most sumptuous way—showing how Gothic, and in these countries where there is no marble, contrived to make up for the mosaics, etc of the south. The windows are all beautifully stained. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament is, on entering, a blaze of light—and I could not help saying to myself "Porta Coeli".
  • John Henry Newman, diary entry (July 1846), quoted in The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman: Littlemor to Rome, Oct. 1845–Dec. 1846, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain (1961), p. 210

• Pugin was only just middle height but very strong, broad chest, large hands, massive forehead, nose and chin, well curved flexible mouth, and restless grey eyes, the expression of which turned inwards when in deep thought. His hair was darkest brown, thick, not crisp, and he shaved clean like a sailor. All his movements were rapid, full of mental and bodily energy, shewing a nervous and choleric temperament. His sight was 'like a hawk's"; he never used or needed glasses either in making sketches from clerestory stained glass or working minutely, and most of his early designs were on a very fine scale, probably from having etched much
  • John Hardman Powell, quoted in '‘Pugin in His Home’: A Memoir by J. H. Powell', Architectural History, Vol. 31 (1988), p. 176

• His memory was the marvel of all who knew him for long; the mind seemed to receive its impressions without a particle of mist or shadow, keen, definite and lasting, to be recalled at will unchanged. He was thorough and earnest in doing all he undertook with all his might, and not resting till it was accomplished. He was passionate, but believed his anger was always another's fault, honest rages with no malice in them, blowing over without leaving resentment.
  • John Hardman Powell, quoted in '‘Pugin in His Home’: A Memoir by J. H. Powell', Architectural History, Vol. 31 (1988), p. 176

• St. George's was not high enough for want of money? But was it want of money that made you put that blunt, overloaded, laborious ogee door into the side of it? Was it for lack of funds that you sunk the tracery of the parapet in its clumsy zigzags? Was it in parsimony that you buried its paltry pinnacles in that eruption of diseased crockets? or in pecuniary embarrassment that you set up the belfry foolscaps, with the mimicry of dormer windows, which nobody can ever reach nor look out of? Not so, but in mere incapability of better things.
  • John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice. Volume the First. The Foundations (1851), pp. 372-373