page_title: Decimus Burton
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Decimus Burton / Career / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Panorama of the lake in front of the Palm House, Kew Gardens, London. Ricoh GX100, 24mm equivalent, f/5.1, 1/500s, ISO 100, WB daylight. 12 photos stitched with Arcsoft Panorama Maker 3.
context_page_description: Decimus Burton FRS FRSA FSA FRIBA was one of the foremost English architects and urban designers of the 19th century. He was the foremost Victorian architect in the Roman revival-, Greek revival-, Georgian neoclassical-, and Regency styles. He was accomplished also in the cottage orné-, picturesque-, and neogothic styles. He was a founding Fellow and, later, Vice-President, of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and architect to the Royal Botanic Society from 1840 and an early member of the Athenaeum Club, London, whose club premises he designed and the company of father, James Burton, the pre-eminent property developer of Georgian London, built. Modern architectural historians, such as Guy Williams and Dana Arnold, contend that Decimus Burton's contribution to architecture has been grossly underestimated by previous architectural historians: as a consequence of the misattribution to Nash of many of his works; of his undeserved vituperation by his neo-gothic nemesis, Augustus W. N. Pugin; and of the consequent retention of his archives by his family.
  Decimus Burton's projects include Hyde Park, London; Green Park and St James's Park; Regent's Park, London
context_section_description: Despite the fact that he had left his library to the Royal Institute of British Architects, of which he had served as President, most of it was deposited instead with his two unmarried nieces, Helen and Emily Jane Wood, who subsequently sold it, and the remainder was distributed among other family members. As a consequence, according to Dana Arnold, there is a gross imbalance between the ‘scale and significance’ of Decimus Burton’s work and the amount of documentary evidence about it that has come into the public domain. Given the fragmentary nature of written sources concerning his work, he has tended to be relegated, quite undeservedly, 'to the margins of architectural histories’. However, Burton's works in London, especially those around Hyde Park, Green Park, Regent's Park, remains a lasting and resplendent memorial. His reputation has increased since the commencement of the 20th century, during which a Burtons' St Leonards Society has been founded in St Leonards-on-Sea to 'encourage the preservation of the work of James and Decimus Burton and to prevent development unsympathetic to its character', which has successfully thwarted several attempts to create new developments that would have violated the beauty of the Burtons' project. Architectural historian Guy Williams writes that "[the] arch at Hyde Park Corner is a visible reminder of one of the fiercest attacks [on Decimus Burton and neoclassicism, by Augustus Pugin] that have ever been launched in the worlds of art and architecture. The face of London might have been very different now - freer, perhaps, of the 'monstrous carbuncles' so disliked by the present Prince of Wales - if the attacked party [Decimus Burton] had been a little more pugnacious, and so better equipped to stand his ground".
  The recently completed restoration (2018) of the Temperate House at London's Kew Gardens has prompted a re-evaluation of Burton's horticultural designs. Douglas Murphy contends that Burton's use of "Iron and glass, through shedding ornament and aiming for efficient performance over capricious pomp, was retroactively understood as the historic forerunner of Modernism, meaning that what had been thought of as mere engineering was allowed to enter the pantheon of true architecture. Burton’s name was now fortunately attached to some of the most significant works of that type".
  Burton's legacy on either side of the Irish Sea endures. In April 2017 the Hearsum Collection, in collaboration with The Royal Parks and Ireland's Office of Public Works, mounted an exhibition at Dublin's Phoenix Park entitled Parks, Our Shared Heritage: The Phoenix Park, Dublin & The Royal Parks, London, demonstrating the historical links between Richmond Park (and other Royal Parks in London) and Phoenix Park. This exhibition was also displayed at the Mall Galleries in London in July and August 2017.
caption: The Palm House and lake to Victoria Gate
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