Bad Boy-chitecture

So-called “rogue architecture” (as in “rogue elephant”) was used to label particularly too animated, over-acrobatic, or otherwise embarrassing 19th-century Gothic Revival works. In their time they were deemed empty fashion, ham-fisted, clumsy, discordant, with clashing colors, excessive, coarse liveliness, decadence, furious vigour, recklessness, exaggeration, and vulgarity, generally overdone for nothing more than self-advertisement—just like some “bad boy-chitecture” we see today.

Nos. 33-35 Eastcheap, City of London, of 1868.

Independent architectural history scholar Edmund Harris’s new, slim volume The Rogue Goths: R.L. Roumieu, Joseph Peacock and Bassett Keeling goes some way to redress the balance, softening the derogatory overtones of the term “Rogue.” James Stevens Curl’s review of the book is definitely worth reading.

Going Rogue | James Stevens Curl

https://thecritic.co.uk/going-rogue/