View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Liverpool Repository BOOK REVIEWS and Greece, but he also visited the same name, this Peter Ellis was Don’t forget that if In the Footsteps…, and realises, in London to study technical aspects of born in 1805 in Liverpool, where his you’d like to buy any fact, that much of this book is just building. With the aid of load-bearing father, similarly Peter Ellis, was a of the books that: an illustrated walk, in the reviewed here, the iron frames he designed a new type builder and, by 1832, styled also as Victorian Society company of ‘Peter’, as the author of compact ‘storage library’ (for the an architect. Ainsworth and Jones benefits from every refers to him, through nineteenth- university libraries in Kiel, Greifswald speculate that their Peter Ellis might order placed on century Liverpool. and Halle). have learned his draughting skills Amazon via the No. 16 Cook Street, Ellis’s one Körte has divided the extensive from James Sherriff, a surveyor and Society’s website. other surviving building, is as curious Go to: material on Gropius’s life and works cartographer, but he would almost bit.ly/booksreviewed as Oriel Chambers. Once again a into three periods. In so doing, he certainly have learned his building cast-iron frame is employed, now aims to draw links between the skills from his father while developing supporting the shallow-vaulted, fire- architect’s background areas such as those around Great proof brick ceilings and the circumstances and his career and George Square and Kent Square, now improbable, glazed warehouse make these more comprehensible to demolished. By 1834, Peter Ellis fils is façade. Even more improbable is the the reader. The buildings are in turn listed in Gore’s Directory as an glazed spiral stair at the rear. Here, in divided into groups (such as houses, architect in Renshaw Street. something that presages the stair hospitals, tombs, university and In 1839 Ellis submitted designs for towers at Walter Gropius’s model library buildings, office blocks and the new St George’s Hall, and, factory built for the 1914 Deutscher furnishings). Because such division following Harvey Lonsdale Elmes’s Werkbund exhibition in Cologne, into projects can seldom be success in the competition, Ellis is at what might be regarded combined smoothly with a published his proposals as a book, his most Modern. But this, I think, is description of a career, the structure Rejected Designs for the Intended St an analysis in search of an of the book is not always clear. In George’s Hall, Liverpool (1839). His argument. For Ellis was, ultimately a addition, a few projects are singled solution was a Roman Corinthian Liverpool architect/surveyor who, as out with their own chapters (the design with a raised hexastyle this book shows, settled arbitrations, mental hospital at Eberswalde, the portico to the south and four invented and patented a lift, and competition for Berlin cathedral and pilastered corner pavilions, which designed, as well as an Italianate the competition for the Reichstag), signified the broad circumferential homeopathic dispensary, a school whereas the Museum of Decorative corridor. The centrally placed and and a chapel in an unconvincing Arts, which could have had a galleried great hall, which could seat Gothic-revival style. Whereas we chapter to itself, is buried in the 2,000 (or 1,200 for dinner), rose 72ft should be grateful that the Luftwaffe group ‘Late Works’. (21.6m) to a coffered and coved did not do more damage to Oriel Körte studied architecture at the ceiling. The 500-seat barrel-vaulted Chambers than it did, we should be Technische Hochschule in Munich concert hall appeared mean by equally grateful that it was Elmes’s and Harvard University. He was also comparison and was pushed away entry that won the competition for a colleague of Walter Gropius in his into the north portico. However, this St George’s Hall. office, the Architects’ Collaborative, initial competition was not acted NEIL JACKSON in Boston. After returning to Europe upon and another for an Assize he was professor at the Technical Court was launched, but it is not For details of a special readers’ University Darmstadt from 1980 to known if Ellis participated. In the offer on In The Footsteps Of Peter 2000. The fact that he repeatedly event, Elmes won this too and the Ellis turn to page 34 refers to Martin Gropius as the present building is the result. ‘precursor of Modernism’ and his Whereas Ellis’s design for St REVIEWERS architecture as ‘early Modern’ or the George’s Hall might be expected, Samantha F. Barnes is Project Officer for ‘transition to Modernism’ can be that for Oriel Chambers was not. It the Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding explained by his adherence to a was described first by The Porcupine Natural Beauty. She wrote her MSc teleological historiography of and then The Builder as a ‘vast dissertation on Co-operative store Modernism. Nevertheless, this abortion’, and by The Building News architecture, and her book on Manchester extensive and detailed monograph is as ‘a kind of greenhouse architecture Board Schools was published in 2010. a long-awaited and important run mad’. Nevertheless, since the Gary Breeze is a lettercutter of stone and contribution to the architectural exposing of its structure during the wood in Diss, Norfolk. He also teaches at history of the late nineteenth century. Blitz, this cast-iron build has been West Dean College. TEPPO JOKINEN much recognised for its novelty, and www.garybreeze.co.uk even its proto-Modernism. Here, 140 Neil Jackson is the Charles Reilly IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF pages into the book, one might hope Professor of Architecture at the University PETER ELLIS for an architectural discussion, but of Liverpool and a life member of the Architect of Oriel Chambers and none is forthcoming. Maybe that is Victorian Society. 16 Cook Street, Liverpool understandable, for Ainsworth, who, Teppo Jokinen is a Finnish art and by Robert Ainsworth and Graham as the book’s biographies declare, architectural historian living in Berlin. He Jones was ‘deeply concerned with specialises in the the history of Liverpool History Society, 2013, conservation [and] helped set up the architecture in the late 19th century and 228pp Liverpool Cultural Heritage Forum’, the historiography of art and architecture. ISBN 9780955942839 sadly died before the book was Stefan Muthesius is Honorary Professor £24pb complete, and his co-author, who in the School of Art History at the The title of this book tells us pretty completed the text, by his own University of East Anglia. His most recent much all that anyone knows about admission ‘knows absolutely nothing book is The Poetic Home: Designing the Peter Ellis. Not to be confused with about architecture’. 19th-century Interior (Thames & Hudson, his older and short-lived brother of And so one looks again at the title, 2009). THE VICTORIAN MARCH 2014 31.