Jonathan Meades :: Case of the Disappearing Architect (4/5)

'Abroad Again' (2007)

"The short and lustrous career of the most mysterious of High Victorian architects is dissected to show the effects of landscape, Francophilia and adultery on his gigantic buildings. At the age of thirty Cuthbert Brodrick was unknown, supported by his shipowner father, earning infrequent minor commissions in the flatlands around his native Hull. By the time he was forty-five his career was over. Yet during those fifteen years he was, briefly, the most celebrated architect in Britain and designed three tours de force that are the finest secular buildings of their age - the Town Hall and Corn Exchange in Leeds and The Grand Hotel at Scarborough. And after that: nothing save almost half a century of apparently willed obscurity in a Parisian suburb."
... description from jonathanmeades.com

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Travel & Events

Tags:

• Jonathan
• Meades

[BillDFC]

It's spooky!

[BenwaysWorld]

I've stayed at The Grand several times. It's by far my favourite hotel... anywhere.

It's kind of tatty and doesn't really know what it is any more, but it's just such an awesome looking building.

[trespire]

Like how they used Pink Floyds' Echoes as incidental music. Gaping at the ovaloid the roof loosing as loosing all sense of perspective and direction, a kind of phsycitropic imparement.

[85scampi]

Excellent!.