Architecture of Wales

Cardiff's civic centre in Cathays Park, described as the finest civic centre in the British Isles, is an impressive, planned group of public buildings, begun largely with wealth created by the coal industry in the south Wales coalfield. This book covers the Cardiff site's earlier evolution as a private park in the nineteenth century by the fabulously rich Bute family, and the borough's battles to obtain land for public buildings and the park's development in the twentieth century, to become Britain's finest civic centre. All the buildings, memorials and statues in the park are fully described and illustrated in this book which includes maps, plans and photographs. “The History and Architecture of Cardiff Civic Centre” is the first in the series Architecture of Wales, published in partnership with the Royal Society of Architects in Wales.

The story of Frank Lloyd Wright's life is no less astounding than his greatest architectural works. He enmeshed himself eagerly in myth and hearsay and revelled in the extravagance of his creative persona. Throughout his long career, Wright strongly resisted the suggestion that his accomplishments owed anything to earthly influences. As much as he wanted his achievements to be recognised, he wanted them to be unaccountable — but they are not. This book reveals for the first time how his unbreakable self-belief and startling creative defiance both originated in the liberal religious and philosophical attitudes woven into his personality during his childhood — deliberately so by his mother and by his many aunts and uncles, to honour the fierce Welsh radicalism of their ancestors.

Architecture reflects not only a nation's history, but also how its people lived, worked, prayed and fought over the centuries. Since the publication of John B. Hilling's “The Historic Architecture of Wales in 1976”, there has been no other attempt at addressing the architecture of Wales as a whole, and this revised publication meets a long-felt need for a general survey of architecture in Wales. It covers two thousand years of architectural history, reflecting the nation's life from Roman times to the present century—less a revision of the original than a complete re-writing, taking into account recent research and recent buildings. The book is illustrated with 268 colour and black-and-white photographs, drawings, plans and maps.