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Revival of Christian Architecture
Artist: A.W.N. Pugin (1843)
Engraving: from Revival of Christian Architecture (1843)
Source: RIBA British Architectural Library

Rarely have church spires looked sinister. Drawn up in their ranks, these churches seem to be ready to fight. But the campaign is unusual: this is the part of the so-called Battle of the Styles.

Published in 1843, this engraving was part of Pugin’s attempt to reform architecture, and society. Comparing Medieval with modern, he despaired of the contemporary moral decline. Commercial buildings and prisons, rather than churches dominated the modern town, their architecture mean and a sham. Construction was cheap, and structures hidden. The true principles of architecture needed revival, and by this Pugin meant a return to thirteenth and early fourteenth-century Gothic, as shown by his own practice.

In this engraving, Pugin has mustered designs of his own churches to prove his point. At the centre is St Giles, Cheadle, a beacon of hope, its spire touching the heavens. Around are gathered his other ecclesiastical projects, many left incomplete owing to funding difficulties. Like earlier tribute drawings, such as those of Inigo Jones’ and Wren’s collected works, a certain liberty is taken to prove a point.