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Terms and conditions applyTwentieth Century Architects: Stephen Dykes Bower
Anthony Symondson
Product details
Format: Book
Pages: 160
Publisher: RIBA Publishing
Date Published: Dec 2011
Stock Code: 74807
ISBN: 9781859463987
Binding: Paperback
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Total votes: 5
Description
Stephen Dykes Bower (1902-1993) was unique among twentieth-century British architects as a sincere practitioner of Gothic design whose career was mainly in the post-1945 period. He rejected modernism and continued traditions from the late Victorian period, with an emphasis on fine detail, craftsmanship and bright colour.
He built four completely new churches, including the remarkable, richly-patterned St John’s at Newbury. At Bury St Edmunds his extension of a parish church into a cathedral, ‘our finest modern cathedral’ in the view of Sir John Betjeman, was spectacularly completed in 2005 with the addition of a crossing tower, designed by Warwick Pethers, the last of his assistants.
Most of Dykes Bower’s work was in the context of older buildings, including Westminster Abbey, where he cleaned the grimy stonework of the interior and added sparkling colour to the monuments. At St Paul’s Cathedral, he created the sumptuous high altar and baldacchino. Parish churches across England bear witness to his skill and care, and to the team of craftsmen in silver, iron, stone and decorative painting who carried out his designs. In addition, he was an expert on organs and their cases, and one of the best designers of fine embroidered vestments, frontals and hangings. He rescued unfashionable and rejected church fittings of high quality and used them to add beauty to churches in deprived areas.
Dykes Bower’s skill was not only in details but also in making harmonious spaces for worship.
Anthony Symondson draws on many conversations with Stephen Dykes Bower and people who knew and worked with him to create a revelatory account of a largely unknown career. It follows the same author’s major study, Sir Ninian Comper (2006). This book will appeal to lovers of churches and their decoration, to professionals involved in church design and conservation, and to all who are interested in the alternatives to Modernism in the twentieth century.
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Featured Reviews
Alexander Robertson, New Directions - April 2012
An essential purchase for anyone interested in the renewal of authentic architectural principles or with a general interest in church architecture and interiors.
Michael Hall, Country Life May 2012
In the latest of the RIBA's outstanding '20th Century Architects' series Anthony Symondson absorbingly tells the story of a man who carried Gothic architecture to the brink of the 21st century and beyond.
Kenneth Powell - The Anglo-Catholic History Society Newsletter May 2012
Symondson makes a strong case not only for Dykes Bower as a highly significant 20th century architect but equally for the validity of traditional design today. As the Church increasingly questions the destructive impact of Vatican II on its liturgy and buildings the work of this great traditionalist deserves to be more widely known and better understood.
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