This title explores the controversy surrounding the design of the new Foreign Office in London during Britain's Imperial heyday. In 1855 it was decided to build a new block of government offices in London, starting with the Foreign and War Offices. The government offices competition came at what was probably - looking back on it - the zenith of Britain's confidence as a nation and international power. One would expect the mid-Victorians to have felt, firstly, pride in their current national situation; and secondly, the urge to commemorate this in the most important national building to be projected in twenty years. Porter uses the debates surrounding the building of these important new monuments to interrogate the very fabric of British society, culture and nation building. The discussion on so many issues - religion, nationality, empire, history, modernism, truth, morality, gender - quite apart from considerations of 'pure' aesthetics, offers an unusual, perhaps even unique, insight into the relationship between these matters and the 'culture' of the time.

Explores the controversy surrounding the design of the new Foreign Office in London during Britain's Imperial heyday.

About the Author
Bernard Porter is Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of Newcastle, UK. One of the most important and controversial historians of the British Imperial period, his works include The Absent-Minded Imperialists, winner of the AHA Maurice Forkosch Prize and The Lion's Share: A Short History of British Imperialism. He has taught at the Universities of Hull, Rochester (NY State), Yale and Sydney; and held Research Fellowships at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the Australian National University and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Reviews
'I'm glad I read it: I'm a little more knowledgeable about styles of architecture and their antecedents and I enjoyed the book more than was expected.' -- thebookbag.co.uk
'Porter tells this unedifying story in detail from the point of view of one interested in the British cultural, social and political contexts of the time, and he does so with zest...' -- Times Higher Education Supplement
This is a curious, rather learned essay, and by no means an uninteresting one. -- Literary Review
[a] lively account... [Porter's] sweep through the sources is extraordinarily wide... every possible angle on the commission and reception of this grand building is considered. -- The Times Literary Supplement
Author article mentioning book title in The Guardian.
In this full and detailed study Prof. Porter looks afresh at this debate and at the issues that lay behind it and gives us new insights, especially in the reaction to the Classicists' victory... -- Contemporary Review, Volume 293, No. 1702
Porter provides an excellent concise account of the reasons for erecting a new Foreign Office plus the background to the international competition for the New Public Offices in Whitehall, as well as illustrations of the key designs... the new and remarkable feature of this book is Porter's analysis of how the Classical/ Gothic debate on architecture sheds light on the Victorian society of the day more generally. -- The Victorian, No.38
Although this debate has been covered by others, Porter's aim is to broaden discussion of it into what he considers to be its rightful "context": Victorian society as a whole during the 1850s and 1860s. He generally tells this tale in a lively, engaging, and at times amusing fashion, bringing some new sources and insights to bear. -- Alex Bremer, University of Edinburgh * Victorian Studies/Vol. 5, No. 22 *



Book Information
ISBN 9781441167392
Author Professor Bernard Porter
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Continuum Publishing Corporation
Publisher Continuum Publishing Corporation