Some stories do get more interesting, and some places are discovered to be more important than first assumed. Take, for example, one of the nationality classrooms at the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland. It was John G. Bowman, the university's visionary chancellor of the 1920s, who proposed decorating classrooms in the Collegiate Gothic/Art Deco Cathedral of Learning (designed by Charles Z. Klauder, 1926-37) in the manner of the countries of origin of Pittsburgh's multiethnic residents. The program began in 1926; each room was to be decorated in a national style prior to 1787 (the date of the founding of the university), and the first rooms opened in 1938. A unique opportunity arose after World War II when the London member of the committee to plan an English Nationality Room, Alfred C. Bossom, M.P. (Member of Parliament; later Lord Bossom), learned that architectural elements salvaged from the House of Commons, bombed on May 10, 1941, could be made available to the university. With the approval of the speaker of the House of Commons, these architectural elements were sent to Pittsburgh; they arrived on March 13, 1950, and were reassembled in the English Room, which was dedicated Nov. 21, 1952. The destroyed House of Commons had been completed in the 1850s; thus the inclusion of 19th-century architectural fragments in this Nationality Room represented a variance from the official pre-1787 design policy. Thanks to this bending of the rules the English Room acquired unique, one might say, invaluable 19th-century elements. For as Alfred Bossom wrote to the director of the Nationality Rooms, Ruth Crawford Mitchell, in 1956: “… You have today actually in Pittsburgh more of the original materials from the old House of Commons than exists anywhere else in the world.” And there is more. In June 2001, 60 years after the bombing of the House of Commons, Peter Cormack, Deputy Keeper of the William Morris Gallery in London, visited the English Room. He saw the elements from the House of Commons. He recognized, moreover, their creator – Augustus Pugin – one of England's most important and influential architects and designers. The designer Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was born in London in 1812, the only child of French emigre Augustus C. Pugin and his English wife, Catharine nee Welby. The elder Pugin was a noted illustrator, architectural draftsman and drafting teacher. He began his pioneering measured drawings of medieval buildings, “Specimens of Gothic Architecture” in 1818. His son became his most accomplished pupil, so proficient that by the age of 13 he was preparing plates for his father's books (and would complete the third and final volume of “Specimens” in 1833). Pugin's education was more activist and practical than formal and academic. He was tutored at home, studied buildings in Britain and France on family trips, and was an avid user of the Print Room at the British Museum. Convinced of the superiority of the “pointed style” – so called after the pointed shape of the late medieval Gothic arch – he began to design furniture and metalwork at an early age. At the age of 15, he was asked to design tables and chairs for Windsor Castle and goblets and candlesticks for the royal silversmiths. Later he worked as a stage carpenter and set designer. Designs for wallpaper, textiles, stained glass, and ceramic tiles based on medieval forms followed, and he collaborated with several architects as an interior designer. He became a collector – and seller – of medieval antiquities. He published his first book, “Gothic Furniture of the 15th Century Designed and Etched by A.W.N. Pugin.” (1835), at the age of 23. Later that year he became a Roman Catholic, and thereafter he wrote books and pamphlets to demonstrate that Gothic was the definitive English architectural style and that the Roman Catholic Church was the legitimate Church of England. The most influential of his many books are “Contrasts: or a Parallel Between the Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and Similar Buildings of the Present Day; Shewing the Present Decay of Taste” (1836), “The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture” (1841), “An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture” (1843), and “Foliated Ornament” (1849). Pugin designed his first home in 1835, and while he designed a few houses, his principal works as an architect were more than 40 churches, and numerous chapels, convents, abbeys, schools, hospitals, parish houses, church interiors and ecclesiastical restorations in England, Ireland, and Australia. He was married three times – his first two wives died young (the third outlived him by 57 years) – and he fathered eight children. Contemporaries characterized him as sociable, erudite, energetic, and supremely self-confident in his opinions. He loved the sea and owned and sailed boats. He presented a somewhat bohemian appearance, often mixing nautical garb with other garments he designed or modified, such as a greatcoat whose large inner pockets held all his travel needs, making luggage superfluous. From 1836 to 1852, Pugin worked on the most important commission of his age: rebuilding the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament), partially destroyed in a fire in 1834. The work was essentially finished with the opening of the House of Commons in February 1852. On Sept. 14, 1852, Pugin died. He was 40 years old. Pugin, the New Palace of Westminster and the English Nationality Room When architect Charles Barry received the commission to design a new Palace of Westminster – one preserving historical elements dating from the 11th century as well as providing the latest in Victorian efficiency and comfort, all within an architecturally harmonious and regal facade – he turned to Pugin for assistance. Pugin was responsible for all aspects of the interior design, and Barry also drew upon his ideas for various exterior details – the famous clock tower, for example, is similar to a Pugin design of 1835. To unify (and simplify) the extensive program of decoration, Pugin used a number of recurring motifs, treated lavishly in the House of Lords and the Royal apartments, and more simply in the House of Commons. Among them are the Tudor rose, a five-petal marriage of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster; Tudor flowers, cross-shaped patterns with foliage extremities; the Queen's monogram, “VR” (Victoria Regina); and the portcullis, i.e., a medieval entrance grille raised and lowered vertically; all are used on furniture, upholstery, wallpapers, tiles, etc. As we enter the English Nationality Room, we face the north or Fifth Avenue side of the Cathedral. The Pugin wall is the south end of the room. The distinctive oak paneling, interrupted by a stone fireplace, continues across the wall to meet the elaborate wooden doorframe on the west side of the room. (A plaque above the fireplace inscribed with a quotation from Shakespeare's “Richard II”; a Royal Coat of Arms circa 1618 above the doorway; and the double doors were either installed by university architect Albert A. Klimcheck when the room was created 1950-52 or added at a later date.) The paneling, the fireplace, and the doorframe were designed by Pugin. The fireplace was originally located in the Aye Lobby of the House of Commons. Hans Wild describes this room in “Westminster Palace” (1946): “On the left and right of the Chamber, doorways gave on to the narrow 'Aye' and 'No' or 'Division' Lobbies, by entering which M.P.'s record their vote on any bill or motion.” The face or surround of the fireplace is carved limestone (bearing scars from the bombing). The opening is a composite Tudor arch (concentric arches meeting at a shallow point). The upper section is decorated with three shields; between the shields ribbon-like banners nestle among oak leaves and acorns. Below on either side is Queen Victoria's monogram, set within a tangle of ribbons. Today, the fireplace floor or hearth is composed of seven rows of ceramic russet tiles 9 inches by 1 1/2 inches, laid in a herringbone pattern, which extend out into the room. In the center of the outer hearth, four 6-inch red, gold, and black tiles are set in a 12-inch-by-12-inch diamond pattern – oak leaves at the edges and Tudor flowers in the middle radiate from the central Tudor rose. The tile, called encaustic or inlaid tile, was made by Minton. Originally, a wide border of Minton tile was set within the fireplace surround. An early photograph shows exuberant foliate patterns within a Gothic framework. The tile surround was quintessential Pugin, who “brought together … the revival of medieval practice and the celebration of nature,” as Stuart Durant observed in “Ornament” (1986); such designs profoundly influenced William Morris and his successors. In 1954, the tiles were removed to accommodate a 16th-century iron fireback, and are presumably lost. The oak paneling is called “linenfold,” because of its resemblance to folded fabric; the ornamental cresting above the door frame lintel is a garland of Tudor flowers topped by a rope molding that stretches between tall foliated finials (decorative knobs). Within the room are additional elements designed by Pugin. Two of the six roundels (round panels) of stained glass in the windows facing Fifth Avenue contain shards from Pugin's stained-glass windows, shattered in 1941. He designed the four limestone corbels or brackets ornamented with giant Tudor roses that appear to support the ceiling. Among the furnishings are two of the simple, sturdy oak side chairs upholstered in green leather that Pugin designed for use throughout the House of Commons. (His similar version for the House of Lords has more ornate legs.) The green leather backs are embossed with a gold portcullis topped by a coronet and framed by links of chain. Alfred Bossom noted that these chairs had been rebuilt from chairs damaged in the bombing, although the upholstery was new (and has been replaced twice since 1952, the leather acquired from the official upholsterer to Parliament). Pugin's legacy The two great rules for design are these: 1st, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction or propriety; 2nd, that all ornament should consist of the essential construction of the building. The neglect of these two rules is the cause of all the bad architecture of the present time. “The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture,” 1841 Pugin placed Gothic architecture and craftsmanship squarely in the forefront of 19th-century design, informing the sensibilities and the work of countless later architects and artists. In 1904, Hermann Muthesius stated in his monumental book, :"The English House": “Looking back today at the achievement of the Gothicists in the field of artistic handicrafts, one can have no doubt that Pugin's work stands supreme.” Ninety years later Clive Wainwright writes in "Pugin: A Gothic Passion" (Yale 1994): “Both in architecture and the applied arts Pugin's principles were to underpin the whole of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America.” (Pugin would have been irate – and published a stinging rebuttal – had he known that his “two rules” for design would be separated from their medieval and Christian context and quoted approvingly by 20th-century Functionalists and Brutalists.) In Pittsburgh, architecture and decorative arts rooted in medieval design and craftsmanship flourished in the 1840s – John Chislett, Joseph Kerr, John Notman – through the 1880s and '90s – H.H. Richardson, John Evans, William Halsey Wood, Frank Furness – to the 20th century: Franz Aretz, John T. Comes, Charles J. Connick, Ralph Adams Cram, Bertram Goodhue, Wright Goodhue, Henry Hunt, Charles Z. Klauder, Lawrence Saint, George and Alice Sotter, Carlton Strong, Edward J. Weber, Howard G. Wilbert, William and Annie Lee Willet – to name the best known. It is therefore appropriate – indeed, rather humbling – to discover Pugin in Pittsburgh, and to know that fragments of the work of this brilliant designer and ardent theorist are preserved in the English Nationality Room in the Cathedral of Learning. Tours of the 26 Nationality Rooms in the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning in Oakland may be arranged each day except Thanksgiving, Dec. 24, 25, 31, and Jan. 1 by calling 412-624-6000. Visitors will experience cultures of Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia in two hours for a moderate fee. A Holiday Open House will be held noon to 4 p.m. Dec. 8. It will feature performances, ethnic food, national dress, and holiday decorations. The Web site is www.pitt.edu/~natrooms

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