page_title: William Burges
section_title: Early life and travels
hierarchical_section_title: William Burges / Early life and travels
caption_attribution_description: English: Burdett House was constructed in 1968, replacing a building of 1906 which was destroyed in WW2. That building replaced two earlier Georgian buildings, 15 &amp; 16, Buckingham Street. No. 15 was home to William Burges, 1856-1875, Charles Dickens, circa 1834, and William Smith (geologist), 1804-1819. It has also, erroneously been described as home to Peter the Great during the London stage of his Grand Embassy in 1698. The block stands to the right of the York Water Gate, Victoria Embankment
context_page_description: William Burges ARA was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoclassical architectural style and re-establish the architectural and social values of a utopian medieval England. Burges stands within the tradition of the Gothic Revival, his works echoing those of the Pre-Raphaelites and heralding those of the Arts and Crafts movement.
  Burges's career was short but illustrious; he won his first major commission for Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork in 1863, when he was 35, and he died, in 1881, at his Kensington home, The Tower House, aged only 53. His architectural output was small but varied. Working with a long-standing team of craftsmen, he built churches, a cathedral, a warehouse, a university, a school, houses and castles.
  Burges's most notable works are Cardiff Castle, constructed between 1866 and 1928, and Castell Coch, both of which were built for John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute.
context_section_description: Burges was born on 2 December 1827, the son of Alfred Burges (1796–1886), a wealthy civil engineer. Alfred amassed a  considerable fortune, which enabled his son to devote his life to the study and practice of architecture without requiring that he actually earn a living.
  Burges entered King's College School, London, in 1839 to study engineering, his contemporaries there including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Michael Rossetti. He left in 1844 to join the office of Edward Blore, surveyor to Westminster Abbey. Blore was an established architect, having worked for both William IV and Queen Victoria, and had made his reputation as a proponent of the Gothic Revival. In 1848 or 1849, Burges moved to the offices of Matthew Digby Wyatt. Wyatt was as prominent an architect as Blore, evidenced by his leading role in the direction of The Great Exhibition in 1851. Burges's work with Wyatt, particularly on the Medieval Court for this exhibition, was influential on the subsequent course of his career. During this period, he also worked on drawings of medieval metalwork for Wyatt's book, Metalwork, published in 1852, and assisted Henry Clutton with illustrations for his works.
  Of equal importance to Burges's subsequent career was his travelling. Burges believed that all architects should travel, remarking that it was "absolutely necessary to see how various art problems have been resolved in different ages by different men." Enabled by his private income, Burges moved through England, then France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece and finally into Turkey. In total, he spent some 18 months abroad developing his skills and knowledge by sketching and drawing. What he saw and drew provided a repository of influences and ideas that he used and re-used for the whole of his career. 
  Although he never went beyond Turkey, the art and architecture of the East, both Near and Far, had a significant impact on him; his fascination with Moorish design found ultimate expression in the Arab Room at Cardiff Castle, and his study of Japanese techniques influenced his later metalwork. Burges received his first important commission at the age of 35, but his subsequent career did not see the development that might have been expected. His style had already been formed over the previous twenty years of study, thinking and travelling. J. Mordaunt Crook, the foremost authority on Burges, writes that, "once established, after twenty years' preparation, his 'design language' had merely to be applied, and he applied and reapplied the same vocabulary with increasing subtlety and gusto."
caption: Burdett House, 15–16 Buckingham Street, to the right of the York Water Gate. Burges had his home/studio in a building on the site of No.15.[a]
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