Augustus Pugin

Augustus Pugin

In Pugin’s opinion, Classical architecture is the long established Gothic or to use his own words “Pointed” or “Christian” architecture.

While Augustus Pugin was designing the Palace of the Westminster he was also converting a return to the Gothic style of architecture through his writings. For the artist, the Gothic superiority of his work on the new Palace of Westminster did not only represent a public statement of a wedded architectural expression but also a spiritual one. In 1835 Pugin converted to Catholicism. That is why his furnishing designs mirror many features of a pre-Reformation Catholic church. ‘The reign of classicism represented to him the “current secularism and moral degeneracy” of England and Wales and of which the Anglican Church had supported.’

Pugin noticed that the values and artefacts of society were all intertwined. By promoting the dominant style of Gothic or “Christian Architecture” for the new Palace of Westminster he was sending a message to the people. The message he was trying to send is to go back to the traditional Catholic faith and to the times which were moral, honest and truthful.

With both his writings and his work on the new Palace of Westminster we see Pugin on a mission to prove that Gothic architecture is the way forward for the 19^th century.

Augustus Pugin’s work on the furnishings of the Palace of Westminster would certainly have been seen as a dissent from the contemporary Classical Architecture. 

Augustus Charles Pugin: Information from Answers.com. 2013. Augustus Charles Pugin: Information from Answers.com. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.answers.com/topic/augustus-charles-pugin-1. [Accessed 08 April 2013].