This lecture will consider the role architecture played in responding to perceived notions of British decline in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
It will focus on the Edwardian Baroque style and its relationship to the idea of ‘Greater Britain’, suggesting that architects, their clients, and critics associated with the design of substantial public and commercial buildings during this period, both in Britain and in the wider British world, were acutely aware of the meaning that the style carried. Alex Bremner is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh.