Edwin Rickards was the most flamboyant of Edwardian architects: his buildings were said by John Summerson to fizz like champagne. During a short working life, launched at the age of 25 by winning the competition to design Cardiff City Hall with his partners H.V. Lanchester and James Stewart, he completed four spectacular baroque buildings.
Rickards’ work was unique in Edwardian architecture for his personal combination of French and especially Austrian sources. Working closely with H.C. Fehr and Henry Poole, leading practitioners of the New Sculpture, he designed two of the major monuments of the period. As well as being one of the best freehand draughtsmen in London, he was also a prodigious caricaturist. With a foot in the demi-monde and an endless appetite for architectural and personal adventure, Rickards was an unforgettable figure to everyone who met him.
Illustrated throughout with stunning new photography by Robin Forster and by Rickards’ own sketches and drawings, this book portrays his close friendship with the novelist Arnold Bennett who described him, along with H.G Wells, as one of ‘the two most interesting, provocative, and stimulating men I have yet encountered’, and his meteoric career that ended with his early death.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Little Rickards Chapter 2: City of Palaces Chapter 3: You Never Know Your Luck Chapter 4: Material to the Core Chapter 5: Big Rickards Notes List of Works Bibliography
About the Author :
Timothy Brittain-Catlin is an architect and architectural historian at the University of Cambridge.
Review :
‘Brittain-Catlin has done a fine job, erudite and entertaining, informative and perceptive, with a splendid choice of visual matter.’ James Stevens Curl, *The Critic *
‘Timothy Brittain-Catlin’s new monograph in The Victorian Society series, published by Liverpool University Press, is a welcome and incisive introduction to the work of this extraordinary figure. Brittain-Catlin deftly deals with the complexity of his character and with the structural and artistic qualities of his architecture, and the book benefits from excellent new photography by Robin Forster which conveys the sheer bravado of these buildings’ Jeremy Musson, The Victorian
‘In this well-illustrated book (the latest in the Victorian Society’s invaluable series on Victorian and Edwardian architects), which includes many high-quality contemporary photographs of Rickards’ buildings, and reproductions of his architectural drawings, caricatures and accomplished watercolours, the author presents an engaging and lively review of Rickards’ professional life; and the book is enhanced by numerous references to his personal interests and friendships, notably his long and enduring one with the novelist, Arnold Bennett... This is a splendid book, with a comprehensive bibliography and a list of all Rickards’ executed works.’
Nicholas Doggett, Context
‘Simply titled Edwin Rickards, Brittain-Catlin’s book is a concise architectural biography of an important but widely underappreciated British architect. Beautifully written and engaging throughout, it aims to show that Rickards (1872–1920) was both a and one of British history’s great artist-architects.’
G. A. Bremner, The Burlington Magazine
‘Both general and professional readers will, nevertheless, find much to inspire them in Timothy Brittain-Catlin's handsome and most enjoyable Edwin Rickards.’ Kenneth Lynn, The Victorian Web
‘The author’s lively, authoritative, and enjoyable narrative – Deptford Town Hall is described as having ‘… bigness however small’ – is matched by the equally excellent photographs by Robin Forster. These, supplemented with archives, plans and drawings, together reveal their subjects with great clarity and appreciation.’ Julian Holder, Ecclesiology Today
‘A superb tribute to a great architect.’ Andy Foster, Building Design
