Abstract

How do countries acquire their distinctive features and appearance, their look or style? In this study, Jules Lubbock answers this question by focusing on Britain, with its characteristic terraced houses, Georgian squares, postwar slab blocks and Victorian floral ornamentation. Lubbock traces the fierce debates over consumerism, good design and town planning that have raged in Britain since the Elizabethan period, investigating how the design of buildings and possessions - domestic as well as official - becomes an issue of public policy and controversy.