Alfred Waterhouse

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Waterhouse, Alfred (1830–1905). English architect. A master of rational planning, he made his reputation as the designer of several important secular buildings, starting with the Gothic Revival Assize Courts, Manchester (demolished), which he won in competition (1858–9), and gained the approbation of Ruskin. He consolidated his position by almost winning the competition to design the Royal Courts of Justice, London (1866–7—the buildings were erected to designs by Street), and by his success in the competition (1867–8) to design the brilliantly planned Gothic Revival Town Hall in Manchester (1869–77). Waterhouse designed numerous university buildings including the Master's Lodge and Broad-Street Front, Balliol College, Oxford (1866–9—Gothic Revival), the French Renaissance Revival Tree Court, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1868–70), and the Gothic Owen's College (now the University), Manchester (1869–88). Interested in experimentation, he used hard terracottas, bricks, and faïences, as in the Natural History Museum, London (1873–81—much influenced by German (especially Rhineland) Romanesque architecture), the Gothic Prudential Assurance Building, Holborn, London (1878–1906), and the Free Rundbogenstil Congregationalist Churches at Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead (1883), and King's Weigh House, Duke Street, Mayfair, London (1889–91). His National Liberal Club, London (1885–7), was in a mixture of Romanesque and Italian and French Renaissance styles, said at the time to reflect the uneasy pot-pourri of disparate opinions within the Liberal Party. The spectacular Eaton Hall, Cheshire (1870–83), seat of the Dukes of Westminster, was demolished in 1961, and was his largest country-house. He also designed the Tudor Revival Blackmoor House and Gothic Revival Church, Blackmoor, Hants. (1868–72). His son, Paul (1861–1924), studied with him, became his partner in 1891, completed his father's University College Hospital, Gower Street, London, and added the Medical School and Nurses' Home (1905). Paul Waterhouse's other works included the Whitworth Hall, University of Manchester (1902) and New Buildings, College Road, University of Leeds (1907–8). Paul Waterhouse was succeeded in the practice by his son, Michael (1889–1968).

Bibliography

Axon (1878);
C. Cunningham (2001);
C. Cunningham & and Waterhouse (1992);
D&M (1985);
Eastlake (1970);
J. Fawcett (ed.) (1976);
Girouard (1990);
A. S. Gray (1985);
Hitchcock (1977);
Maltby et al . (1983);
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Sheppard (ed.) (1975);
Jane Turner (1996);
Waterhouse (1867)

Alfred Waterhouse 1830-1905, English architect. He won competitions for the Manchester assize court (1859) and the Manchester city hall (1868). This work placed him in the forefront of the Victorian Gothic revival. His most important work, the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, in a modified Romanesque style, was notable for its revival of the use of terra-cotta. Waterhouse also executed important buildings for Balliol College, Oxford; Pembroke College, Cambridge; Prudential Assurance Company, Holborn, London; and the City and Guilds College, South Kensington (1881).

Gothic revival Architecture based on the Gothic art and architecture of the Middle Ages. Beginning in the late 18th century, it peaked in 19th-century Britain and the USA, also appearing in many European countries. British exponents, notably the critic John Ruskin and the writer and architect A. W. N. Pugin, insisted on the need for authentic, structural recreation of medieval styles. Notable examples are the Houses of Parliament in London by Pugin and Sir Charles Barry, and Trinity Church in New York City by Richard Upjohn.