On 15 June 1994, an exhibition opened at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum devoted to the life and work of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Now widely acknowledged as one of the key architects and designers of the early Victorian period, Pugin was described in a follow-up exhibition in New York in 1995 as “Master of Gothic Revival”. Three decades ago, things were rather different.
Pugin, though famous (and sometimes infamous) during his short and astonishingly creative life, gradually vanished from public consciousness following his death in 1852 at the age of 40. By the 20th century he was really only known to scholars, academics and design historians. Indeed, the V&A’s exhibition was the first major Pugin display since his Medieval Court at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
