Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

_{3. Royal Pavilion, Brighton, England (1815–21); architect: John Nash (1752–1835). This is one of the most self-consciously exotic buildings that has ever been built. The ‘pavilion’ at Brighton began with a much smaller and more conventional building for the then Prince of Wales (who was later Prince Regent and then George IV). The name ‘pavilion’ derives an old French word for a tent and is now normally used for small buildings that connect with outdoor activity, and it would have fitted the original building reasonably well, but the sprawling palace that developed on the site is not really a pavilion (though some of the roofs have tent-like forms). John Nash also designed the original Regent Street in London, and Buckingham Palace (but not its familiar public façade). The Pavilion was composed of architectural motifs taken from the far reaches of empire, with Indian domes and verandahs on the outside, and a sumptuous western idea of Chinese decoration on the inside.}

Extravagance is also the main reason to be impressed by the great pyramids of ancient Egypt. Vast resources went into making them, and from that we infer how powerful were the rulers who commissioned them. There are reasons to be impressed by the ingenuity of the pyramid builders, and their know-how, but the pyramids would be insignificant monuments, known only to specialists, if they were not big (Figure 4). We are not overly impressed by things that we think we could do ourselves, and the reason that the pyramids were one of the wonders of the world is that they could not easily be imitated, on account of the sheer expense of the undertaking. If the production of the state only just covered the people’s need to subsist, then it would not have been possible to build on such a scale. And if the wealth had been evenly distributed through the society, then no such monument could have been built. A high proportion of the state’s wealth must have been directed into these building programmes, and such a unity of will suggests a political structure that put a great deal of power at the disposal of an individual. The pyramids were given over to survival and prosperity in the afterlife, and so could be seen as a whole society’s investment in the future. The Brighton Pavilion was given over to pleasure. What links the two buildings is that they are far from ordinary, and have little connection with the daily lives of the ordinary people in either society. Neither of them ever helped directly with the activities that make it possible to live, such as the production of food or the manufacture of useful goods. Those activities must have been going on somewhere in each society, but they are not housed in these buildings, which consumed vast resources. They impress because they bear the mark of that consumption — of materials carefully worked, to make effects that were carefully considered.