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9781409461975

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"'Stephen Games's new compendium of broadcast lecture texts represents an invaluable enrichment of the increasingly diverse literature on the life, career and ideas of Nikolaus Pevsner - one of the focal figures of mid-20th-century visual culture in England. Not just that - but, in conjunction with the forthcoming companion volume, Pevsner at the BBC, it will do much to illuminate the wider interconnections between cultural commentators and the mass media in the era of humanist social democracy that Noel Annan fondly dubbed ""Our Age"". Those, after all, were years when public discourse on the built environment was still pervaded by high ideals and ""grand narratives"" of Progress and social salvation - in stark contrast with the empty posturing that passes for architectural ""theory"" in today's time of image-led, ""iconic"" nihilism!' Miles Glendinning, University of Edinburgh, UK 'Conversational, spontaneous, wide-ranging, and often responding to recent travels and encounters, Pevsner's broadcasts reveal a side that does not appear in his more scholarly writings. Reading the transcripts today, they show him reaching beyond the circle of professionals and academics, as part of his mission to bring informed discussion of architecture into the orbit of everyday life.' Adrian Forty, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK 'This volume will appeal to those with an above average interest in art and architecture ... Recommended.' Choice 'Games provides extensive introductory material for each script as well as to the whole collection, which addresses the controversial aspects of Pevsner's career in great detail'. Cassone 'Here for the first time between covers are the surviving texts of 113 talks on art and architecture given by the greatest of all British architectural historians, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner.' Newsletter of the Ancient Monuments Society 'So what is the value of this collection? Firstly it is a reminder of Pevsner's great range of knowledge and the willingness to turn his hand to almost any subject that so suited him to writing ... Most engaging, perhaps are Pevsner's accounts of his first visits to Washington, Brazil and New Zealand: more direct, vivid and just a little anecdotal.' The Architectural Historian 'The book is a major achievement... it will be an invaluable tool for historians not just of Pevsner himself but architectural historiography more generally, and also of broadcasting, as well as the key role played by the BBC in the cultural education of the nation.' Cercles Pevsner: The Complete Broadcast Talks brings together transcripts of more than a hundred broadcasts on art, architecture and town planning that he gave between 1945 and 1977. It provides an intriguing survey of the cultural mores of the post-war period, from just before the end of World War Two to the two decades after ... One of the most stimulating aspects of the transcripts is the read-across to Pevsner's ideas as expressed elsewhere. Visual Studies, online"

'Stephen Games's new compendium of broadcast lecture texts represents an invaluable enrichment of the increasingly diverse literature on the life, career and ideas of Nikolaus Pevsner - one of the focal figures of mid-20th-century visual culture in England. Not just that - but, in conjunction with the forthcoming companion volume, Pevsner at the BBC, it will do much to illuminate the wider interconnections between cultural commentators and the mass media in the era of humanist social democracy that Noel Annan fondly dubbed Our Age . Those, after all, were years when public discourse on the built environment was still pervaded by high ideals and grand narratives of Progress and social salvation - in stark contrast with the empty posturing that passes for architectural theory in today's time of image-led, iconic nihilism!'Miles Glendinning, University of Edinburgh, UK'Conversational, spontaneous, wide-ranging, and often responding to recent travels and encounters, Pevsner's broadcasts reveal a side that does not appear in his more scholarly writings. Reading the transcripts today, they show him reaching beyond the circle of professionals and academics, as part of his mission to bring informed discussion of architecture into the orbit of everyday life.'Adrian Forty, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK

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Stephen Games is an author and editor. A former documentary maker for the BBC and arts correspondent of The Independent, Stephen's architectural reviews for The Guardian earned him a British Press Award. He has written for the Los Angeles Times and been deputy editor of the RIBA Journal. He was educated at the Central School of Art and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He has recently lectured on architectural history and theory at Kent University, and has taught at Boston University and Temple University, Philadelphia.

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