‘Let the Beautiful and the True be our watchword’, A.W.N. Pugin, The True Principles of Christian or Pointed Architecture
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852), is arguably the greatest British architect, designer and writer of the nineteenth century. Pugin was responsible for an enormous quantity of buildings, and also for countless beautiful designs for tiles, metalwork, furniture, wallpaper , stained glass and ceramics. He is important because through his buildings, designs, and his forceful witty writings such as Contrasts (1836) and the True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841), he made people think in a new way about what architecture was.
Why is Pugin so significant?
Pugin taught that only a caring and ‘good’ society can raise buildings that are truly honest and beautiful. For him, Gothic architecture was the greatest style of building, symbolic of this harmony Pugin’s beliefs and ideas have implications beyond his own era, making him hugely influential, both on other architects and designs of the Gothic Revival throughout the Victorian era and also on many subsequent architects, theorists and writers.
Taken from The Pugin Society Website: http://www.thepuginsociety.co.uk/about-pugin--the-society.html