Read more
As an architect, Thomas Hardy is known only for his red-brick suburban villa, Max Gate. This book takes a wider view, arguing that architects do not just make buildings, but use other forms to change how we see and use the world. Illustrated with a wealth of his little-known drawings, it shows how Hardy developed Wessex, just as an architect would.
List of contents
Part 1: VISION. 1: Not Much of an Architect; 2: A Kind of Education; 3: Ways of Seeing: the Early Novels; 4: Doubt and Experiment: 'Oddities and Failures'; 5: Unsafe Pictures: The Return of the Native; 6: Different Constructions: Built and Imagined Part 2: REALISATION. 7: The Invention of Wessex; 8: The Character of the Streets: The Mayor of Casterbridge; 9: A Little Influence: The Wessex Campaign; 10: Building Up: Max Gate Phase 1; 11: How That Book Rustles: The Woodlanders; 12: Wessex Copyright: Names and Maps; 13: Stepping Out: Authored and Anonymous Part 3: RECONSTRUCTION. 14: Time and Place; 15: Troublesome Land: Tess of the D'Urbervilles; 16: Obstructed Visions: Jude the Obscure; 17: Horizons Open: Poems and Photographs; 18: Building On: Max Gate Extended; 19: An Imaginary Story: The Conservation of Wessex; 20: A Partial Completion: Plays, Poetry, Performances
About the author
Kester Rattenbury is Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster and as an architectural writer and critic, she contributes to numerous national and international magazines and newspapers. In 2003, she set up EXP research group at Westminster with acclaimed projects including the Archigram Archival Project and Supercrit series.
Summary
As an architect, Thomas Hardy is known only for his red-brick suburban villa, Max Gate. This book takes a wider view, arguing that architects do not just make buildings, but use other forms to change how we see and use the world. Illustrated with a wealth of his little-known drawings, it shows how Hardy developed Wessex, just as an architect would.
Additional text
"Handsomely designed and generously illustrated, it also has the merit of being a visual pleasure to read, a bonus not always to be found in these days of increasingly meagre book-production values." – Keith Wilson, English Literature in Transition: 1880-1920
