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History Workshop Journal 2002 54(1):73-99; doi:10.1093/hwj/54.1.73
© 2002 by Oxford University Press
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Topographic Culture: Nikolaus Pevsner and the Buildings of England

David Matless1

1 The University of Nottingham

This paper considers Nikolaus Pevsner's post war architectural volumes on the Buildings of England, and related writings, as works of and within topographic culture. After setting Pevsner within current and historical debates on issues of Englishness and landscape in terms of questions of cultural authority and relations of tradition and modernity, the paper considers the relationship between Pevsner's Penguin Buildings of England series and other topographic and architectural guides, before addressing the treatment of county and local scales in Pevsner's work. Comparison is made between Pevsner and landscape historian W.G. Hoskins in terms of their treatment of English particulars, and the paper gives a detailed analysis of Pevsner's work on the leaf carvings of Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire in terms of issues of nature, modernity and English/European identity. Pevsner's work offers a form of what Pierre Nora terms lieux de memoire, articulating particular senses of place and history within post-war topographic culture.


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