English Journey

In 1826 the great German architect, Schinkel, paid a visit to France and Britain and this is the complete translation into English of the journal that he kept on his travels. It also includes reproductions of all of the drawings that he made of buildings, machinery or workshops that he thought to be of interest. The visit to Britain was of the highest importance in Schinkel's career. It represents the beginning of his serious involvement with new technologies and gave him innumerable ideas for his later architecture. At the same time the journal gives a vivid and pungent response to what was to him a new and fascinating society. As well as visiting the obvious tourist sites in London, Oxford and Edinburgh, he was particularly fascinated by industrial and technological developments in the potteries, the Menai straits, and the industrial towns and workshops of northern Britain of which his drawings are among the very few surviving records. The journal is valuable not only as a record of the responses of a great architect to new experiences, but also for the light it sheds on British life at a critical phase in its history. Schinkel was able to see, discuss and often illustrate buildings that are now lost without trace. The editors provide a full introduction, and critical and explanatory notes to the text of the journal itself.