A Treatise on Projection, with a Complete System of Isometric Drawing, the last book written by Peter Nicholson, and Domestic Architecture in the Tudor Style, the penultimate book written by Peter Frederick Robinson, were both released in 1837. A variety of new and reissued works were published in the year of Queen Victoria’s coronation. Some of these works illustrated the continuity between the needs and interests of the early Victorian era and the years preceding it, while others brought attention to topics that would later become major Victorian concerns.
In 1837, reprints of these writers’ previous works also took front stage in architectural periodicals. Though they are officially considered pre-Victorian, Nicholson and Robinson were two of the most influential and prolific writers on architecture and building of the early nineteenth century. Their influence extended well into the Victorian era, in part because of the numerous subsequent editions of their works.
Robinson’s pattern books of cottage and villa designs continued to influence housebuilders well into the 1850s and even 1860s, while Nicholson’s practical manuals on a wide range of subjects particularly carpentry and joinery dominated building practice during the first half of the nineteenth century. Additional publications in 1837 included C.J. Richardson’s Observations, which served as a foundation for authentic Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture, and A.W.N. Pugin’s Details of Antient Timber Houses, one of several works by Pugin that established guidelines for proper Gothic design.
The Builders’ Portfolio of Street Architecture by James Collis, published in 1837, was the first pattern book primarily devoted to terraced housing, anticipating the Victorian period of mass-produced suburban dwelling. The sixth edition of Charles Hood’s 1837 book A Practical Treatise on Warming Buildings (1885) focused on household heating, a topic that remained hotly contested during the Victorian era among experts and the general public. Many components necessary for building houses over the remainder of the Victorian era were in place in 1837.
By that time, the pattern book, handbook, and price book important resources for building and decoration for the remainder of the century had been established. However, new publications were also emerging quickly; these included the architectural magazine and the trade catalogue, which eventually supplanted many previous sources of guidance. Additionally, by 1837, the foundation for every illustration technique employed in the nineteenth century was in place, and the publishing industry was set to undergo organizational and technological revolution that would alter the scope and appearance of book production. In 1837, the world of architecture and construction was also going through a transitional period.
It would later become more specialized and diverse as new factors like automation and transportation affected long-standing practices. The structure and ornamental detailing of small- to medium-sized Victorian houses depended heavily on the speculative builder, the availability of a big workforce of inexpensive, skilled and unskilled labor, and cheap machine-made building necessities. The variety of publications included in this book reflected these shifts. The influential book The Art of Building a Home by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin was published in 1901.
Since 1837, style has fully circled back to the Arts and Crafts ideal of C.A. Voysey, M.H. Baillie Scott, Parker and Unwin, via the cottages of Robinson, E.W. Nesfield, and others. The number of houses built increased from 1.6 million in 1801, to three million in 1841, to 7.6 million by 1911. The population of England and Wales increased from roughly nine million in 1801, to 16 million in 1841, to 36 million by 1911.
With brief booms in the 1830s, 1840s, and early 1850s, there were two peaks in building activity: in the late 1860s, in the mid-to-late 1870s, and approximately 1900. With the founding of the Architectural Association in 1847 and the Institute of British Architects in 1834 (also known as the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1837), architecture became a more recognized profession in the 1840s. There were 3843 architects in 1861, 6898 in 1881, and a correspondingly lesser increase by 1901. By 1901, quantity surveying and civil engineering had likewise become separate fields of study, with about equal increases in membership reaching 6414 and 11,052 (including mining engineers) by that time.
The construction of homes and the production of building materials became less of an involvement for architects, as these tasks were left to other experts. When it came to large houses, old methods of tracking work as it went along and the client entering into separate contracts with different trades were increasingly controlled. When it came to speculative building without a specific client, building laws, bylaws, restrictive covenants, and credit terms for speculative building were used.
Thomas Cubitt, who started his own construction company in 1815 and employed all tradesmen, foremen, and financial staff in addition to manufacturing his own materials and components on-site, was primarily responsible for the development of the contemporary speculative building industry. By 1828, he had employed a thousand workers. Cubitt constructed a large number of homes in London, including upscale residences in Bloomsbury and Belgravia as well as more modest homes in Barnsbury.