Oxford: An Architectural Guide

Oxford represents a microcosm of the architectural history of Britain as a whole, and as such this book is more than just a concise guide to the city's most celebrated buildings. Howard and Webster write knowledgeably about the city, highlighting, for example, how the collegiate system of buildings arranged around a courtyard influenced Britain's architecture for more than four centuries, while revealing how patrons and benefactors, who were some of the most powerful people in the land, worked with architects and master-masons of the caliber of Wren, Hawksmoor, the Peisleys, and Scott. The twentieth century has also succumbed to Oxford's mix of the traditional and the innovative, with Leslie Martin, Rick Mather, and Hodder Associates, for example, mixing the concepts and techniques of today with the ideals and materials of the past to create new and exciting architecture.