Architecture
Bristol's architecture includes many examples of mediaeval, gothic, modern industrial and post-war architecture. Notable buildings include the gothic revival Wills Memorial Building, and the tallest building in the city, St Mary Redcliffe. The city is noted for its Victorian industrial architecture of the Bristol Byzantine style, characterised by deep red and polychrome brickwork and Byzantine style arches.
Examples of most of the stages of the Architecture of the United Kingdom from the mediaeval era onwards are present in the city. Little remains of the fortifications of the walled city and castle, although several churches from the 12th century have survived. The Tudor period saw several large mansions and estates being built for wealthy merchants outside the traditional city centre. Almshouses and public houses for the rest of the population remain mixed in amongst areas of more recent development. In the eighteenth century, several squares were laid out for the prosperous middle classes in the expanding suburbs which grew to take in many of the surrounding villages. The development of the floating harbour provided a focus for industrial development and the local transport infrastructure including the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Temple Meads railway station, the original part of which was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The twentieth century saw further expansion of the city, with the growth of the University of Bristol buildings and the aircraft industry. During World War II the city centre suffered from extensive bombing during the Bristol Blitz and redevelopment of shopping centres and office buildings continues into the twenty-first century.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Bristol
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)