William Burges (2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoclassical architectural style and re-establish the architectural and social values of a utopian medieval England. Burges stands within the tradition of the Gothic Revival, his works echoing those of the Pre-Raphaelites and heralding those of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Burges's career was short but illustrious; he won his first major commission for Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork in 1863, when he was 35, and he died at his Kensington home, The Tower House, in 1881, aged only 53. His architectural output was small but varied. Working with a long-standing team of craftsmen, he built churches, a cathedral, a warehouse, a university, a school, houses and castles. Burges's most notable works are Cardiff Castle, constructed between 1866 and 1928 and Castell Coch (1872–91), both of which were undertaken for John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute. Other notable buildings include Gayhurst House, Buckinghamshire (1858–65), Knightshayes Court (1867–74), the Church of Christ the Consoler (1870–76) and St Mary's, Studley Royal (1870–78) in Yorkshire, and Park House, Cardiff, (1871–80).
Many of his designs were never executed or were subsequently demolished. His competition entries for cathedrals at Lille (1854), Adelaide (1856), Colombo, Brisbane (1859), Edinburgh (1873), and Truro (1878) were all unsuccessful. He lost out to George Edmund Street in the competition for the Royal Courts of Justice (1866–67) in The Strand. His plans for the redecoration of the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral (1870–77) were abandoned and he was dismissed from his post. Skilbeck's Warehouse (1865–66) was demolished in the 1970s, and work at Salisbury Cathedral (1855–59), at Worcester College, Oxford (1873–79) and at Knightshayes Court had been lost in the decades before.
Beyond architecture, Burges designed metalwork, sculpture, jewellery, furniture and stained glass. Art Applied to Industry, a series of lectures he gave to the Society of Arts in 1864, illustrates the breadth of his interests, the topics covered including glass, pottery, brass and iron, gold and silver, furniture, the weaver's art and external architectural decoration. For most of the century following his death, Victorian architecture was neither the subject of intensive study nor sympathetic attention and Burges's work was largely ignored. However the revival of interest in Victorian art, architecture and design in the later twentieth century has also led to a renewed appreciation of Burges and his work.
Read more about William Burges: Early Life and Travels, Early Works, St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, Architectural Team, Partnership With The Marquess of Bute, Later Works, Metalwork and Jewellery, Stained Glass, Furniture, Personal Life, Death, Legacy and Influence, Architectural Scholarship, List of Works