SK53

Started to re-watch "Travels with Pevsner" on #BBC #iPlayer. I really enjoyed this series when it came out 30 years. (Well, OK, not the Janet Street-Porter episode.)

Brought up short about 30 seconds in when the voice-over describes Pevsner's "Buildings of England" as unique. This is a typical bit of British exceptionalism!

Pevsner was really annoyed when he first visited Britain that there were no handbooks to buildings along the lines of the German Dehio series.

Guess what he did.

Mar 25 at 10:20pmWeb
Show threadSK536d ago
This German Wikipedia page sets out the timeliness of the Dehio Handbuch series and those inspired by it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehio-Handbuch
Dehio-Handbuch – Wikipedia

Show threadSK533d ago

Now watched episodes 1 & 3 (skipping JSP for now and Yotksheeeer).

Episode 1 was as delightful as I remembered it with Dan Cruickshank elegantly sequeing from one deceptively simple concept to the next, and driving a gorgeous DS convertible.

Dorset (Ep. 3) with Patrick Wright, in a Saab, reflected a bit more on people. Highlights for me were the massive Norman Shaw house, now Bryanston School; the decaying flax mill; and a short vignette about council housing at Milton Abbas.

Show threadRhys5d ago
@SK53 I didn't know this was on iPlayer - thanks for the tip off. I saw lots of Pevsner county guides in the second hand bookshop in y Fenni recently and had to control myself.
Show threadSK535d ago

@rhysw I went overboard years ago, but haven't kept up with revisions, so the current collection is about 10 volumes out-of-date.

The older books are still very useful as they are more portable.

I get emails from Yale UP on current Pevsner news which is how I found out.