Architecture and Climate An Environmental History of British Architecture 1600–2000

This book traces the evolving relationship between the architecture and climate of Britain from the late sixteenth to the twentieth century. Through detailed studies of buildings by major architects it explores how the unique character of the climate of the British Isles has had a fundamental influence on the nature of buildings of all kinds and periods, in both country and city.

Based on extensive documentary research and on first-hand analyses of significant buildings, this book combines architectural history with the parallel fields of climate history and the representation of environment in literature and the fine arts. It spans the period in British architectural history from the late sixteenth century to the twentieth century ? from the buildings of the greatest architect of the Elizabethan age, Robert Smythson, to the twentieth century work of Alison and Peter Smithson.

Copiously illustrated with drawings and photographs, including a colour plate section, this book brings a historical dimension to the appreciation of the environment in architecture and, equally, introduces an environmental dimension to the study of the history of architecture.

Introduction 1. Climate Described 2. Robert Smythson and the Environment of the Elizabethan Country House 3. Christopher Wren and the Origins of Building Science 4. Palladianism and the Climate of England 5. Building in the Climate of the Nineteenth Century City 6. The Arts and Crafts House Climatically Considered 7. The Modern Movement House in the British Climate 8. The Environmental Architecture of Alison and Peter Smithson

Dean Hawkes is emeritus professor of architectural design at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University and emeritus fellow of Darwin College, University of Cambridge. His previous books include The Environmental Tradition (1996), The Selective Environment (2002) and The Environmental Imagination (2008). In 2010 he received the RIBA’s biennial Annie Spink Award for excellence in architectural education.