The Gothic Revival (1999) by Chris Brooks is another of those beautiful books in the Phaidon Arts & Ideas series, my Ideal Art Book. It is hardly the most mellifluously written book in the series, I believe because it is burdened by necessary but tedious lists of architects and buildings. I don't have a better suggestion - maybe tables, not lists? Hardly more elegant.
Regardless, the book did just what I wanted it to do, filling in a lot of the intellectual and artistic context of the Gothic Revival in England and elsewhere. Reading and teaching Ruskin led me here. If I ever go on a driving tour of England, I am going to return to this book an make my own list, of places to visit. The illustrations and building photography are superb, as in every book in the series.
Forget the buildings, though, and the ideas, and the political meaning of Belgian Gothic Revival ecclesiastical architecture. I want to look at bookshelves. To the left (from p. 340), we see The Great Bookcase (it has a name!), built 1859-62 by "William Burges and others." Take a trip to Knighthayes Court in Devon to see it for yourself. It's about ten and a half feet high. You might want to contact your local cabinet-maker and commission one of these. It's your duty, really, to help fight the recession.
The book owner who is understandably worried about the inadequate size of The Great Bookcase will want to consider the oak specimen pictured below (p. 356), built by the Austrians Bernardis and Kranner in 1850. This beauty was dispatched to the 1851 Geat Exhibition as an example of Austrian craftsmanship, and now resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The dimensions are 463 x 579 cm, or 15 ft 2 1/2 in x 19 ft. You could omit the little statues and towers if that's too tall for your library. Or you could raise the ceiling of your library.
