ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 61 | February 2003
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Creating a Gothic Paradise
The first comprehensive exhibition of the Australian work by the highly influential early-Victorian architect, designer, theorist and staunch Catholic, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (181252), is on display at the National Library of Australia from 13 February to 18 May 2003. Curated by architectural historian Brian Andrews, this touring exhibition has been organised by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Five years of archival research and intensive field work have resulted in the identification of an exciting, internationally significant and previously unknown body of Pugins work in Australia. Pugin, best known for his remarkable interiors and furnishings of the British Houses of Parliament, had a direct impact on ecclesiastical architecture in Australia, particularly in Tasmania and New South Wales, during the 19th and 20th centuries. He transformed architecture and design in England, forming the starting point for the Gothic Revival Movement and had considerable impact in mainland Europe. For Pugin the beauty and strength of Gothic design represented a living symbol of an earlier age of potent spiritual faith. He had a short but brilliant career. By the time of his death at age 49 he had designed more than 100 buildings and produced thousands of designs for furniture, metalwork, stained glass, ceramic tiles, wallpaper, textiles, jewellery and book illustrations. Pugin wrote and illustrated 13 books, including the influential Contrasts (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841). The impact of his theoretical writings is still evident today.
Pugins influence in Tasmania came about through his close friendship and shared passion for the Gothic tradition with Robert William Willson, who left England in 1844 to become the first Catholic bishop of Van Diemens Land. Accompanying Willson on the voyage was an ecclesiastical treasure-trove that included several tombs, two complete altars, a font, tiles, embroidered silk vestments, exquisite metalwork and three models of small churches, all Pugin designs. Pugin designed 12 Australian buildings, most of them for John Bede Polding, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney from 1842 to 1877. They included St Francis Xaviers Church in Berrima, St Stephens Church, Brisbane, and extensions to old St Marys Cathedral in Sydney (destroyed by fire in 1865 along with the organ case, also designed by Pugin). All are brought to life in the exhibition through architectural drawings and both 19th-century and present-day photographs. While Pugin never visited Australia curator Brian Andrews says There is not a city, town or village in Australia that does not display some evidence of the impact of Pugin and the Gothic Revival, from tiny wooden churches with pointed windows and doors to the magnificent St Patricks Cathedral in Melbourne. Creating a Gothic Paradise: Pugin at the Antipodes contains
more than 280 objects, including furniture, embroidered silk textiles, carved
stonework, metalwork, books, paintings and engravings, documents, photographs
and drawings, with original Pugin designs displayed alongside the items
manufactured from them.
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