Decimus Burton: Gentleman Architect Paul A. Rabbitts (Lund Humphries, £45)
DECIMUS BURTON was one of the more interesting architects active in the UK from the 1820s, not least because his Classicism was free from the arid pedantry displayed in works of some of his more famous contemporaries such as Robert Smirke and William Wilkins. Like John Nash, he successfully melded Classicism with the Picturesque, notably at the Calverley Park Estate, Tunbridge Wells, Kent (from 1828), a development lovingly chronicled by Philip Whitbourn.
Although some of Burton’s works have been destroyed (notably the Colosseum, Regent’s Park [1823-7], which made the young man’s reputation), several of his great buildings survive in London alone, including the beautiful Athenæum Club, Waterloo Place
