Paternoster Square and the New Classical Tradition

The "classical revival" in architecture began in earnest a decade ago. The first serious exhibition of Quinlan Terry's work marked the start of what was to become a crusade to remake British architecture. The Paternoster Square project, which forms the core of this issue, has brought together all key figures in the "revival of architecture" in Britain. In addition, as a result of the way in which commercial development was funded, it involved some of the leading American classicists - heirs to a tradition with its own complex history. If classicism in Britain has not entirely escaped from the old milieu of landed wealth and political conservatism, its connotations in the United States are very different. Thomas Beeby has been working towards a new civic style with his great library in Chicago - stylistically a blend of Chicago and New York motifs from the first decades of this century but at heart a big, rational building.
The recent work and writings of key practising classical architects: Thomas Beeby, Allan Greenberg, John Simpson, Robert Adam, Quinlan Terry, Demetri Porphyrios and Paul Gibson are also included in this issue and exemplifies the central issue for classical architecture in Britain and America in the 1990s. The magazine section which accompanies this issue contains such features as The Lucinda Lambton Diary and Christopher Martin's Media Column. Also included is an extensive interview with Stuart Lipton by Maxwell Hutchinson which raises some intriguing and controversial points. There is an extensive extract from the Stadtfortum symposium in Berlin with contributions from Jacques Derrida and Kurt Forster. In addition there is a review and introduction from Michael Sorkin's latest book "Exquisite Corpse".