A satisfying thorough account of Philip Webb's career does justice to one of the most influential of all Victorian architects, but provokes many questions

Philip Webb: Pioneer of Arts & Crafts Architecture Sheila Kirk Wiley-Academy 60 [pound sterling] (cloth) 2999 [pound sterling] (paper) ISBN 0471987085 (cloth) ISBN 0470868082 (paper)

individual of the many reasons for welcoming Sheila Kirk's handsome work is that it takes far more care above the publication of Philip Webb's works than the architect at any time did. A man of prickly retiring disposition Webb disliked exhibiting his drawings or illustrating his works in periodicals; it was not until after he gave up his London office in 1901 that region Life published the first well-illustrated articles upon his houses. A bachelor who at no time had a professional partner, Webb had no loyal heir to commemorate him in volume form after his death in 1915 This gap was filled in 1935 by the agency of W.R. Lethaby's Philip Webb and his Work, which until now has been virtually the single source of published information about the man who is probably the greatest in quantity widely admired British architect of his time. With Dr Kirk's fresh book, he has at last received the tribute that is his due

Despite the lack of widespread public recognition in his lifetime, Webb's reputation as a founding father of the Arts and Crafts motion has never been in doubt, thanks largely to his drawn out friendship with William Morris. The sum of two units men met in 1856, when Morris started an abortive pupillage in the office of GE road where Webb had been an assistant since 1854 Morris in a short time gave up all idea of being an architect, and from then upon Webb was the leading designer in Morris's circle; although his first commission, R House, is no longer regarded as a significantly original work of architecture, its status as the first great Arts and Crafts remembrancer cannot be doubted. Both as a designer and as a restorer of aged buildings working with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, Webb was rever by dint of the younger architects who struggl to lay into practice Morris's principles: it is impossible to understand the work of Prior, Gimson, Lethaby, dab or the young Lutyens without recognising what George Jack called Webb's 'potent quality of silent influence'. He was affectionately admired not just by means of his friends and colleagues on the other hand also, which is much rarer, by means of almost all his clients.

Lethaby's volume remains valuable, as it prints alphabetic characters from Webb that no longer survive, and incorporates its author's memories of the architect; nonetheless, as a work of scholarship it has been entirely supersed by the agency of Dr Kirk. An impressive example of a threatened species, the architectural monograph, this volume is founded on comprehensive knowledge of the patchy documentary sources and reflective first-hand analysis of the buildings. The plans are of the best quality and it is deeply rewarding to diocese so many examples of Webb's masterful draughtsmanship, as sensitive and confident in its depiction of the natural world as it is in design work. The volume benefits so greatly from the specially commissioned photographs by the agency of Martin Charles that it almost merits to be called a collaboration. Dr Kirk's lucid, flat prose and Mr Charles's magnificent photographs are well serv by means of the high standard of design and printing.

The Arts and Crafts remain a living philosophy to which Dr Kirk whole-heartedly subscribes, and she no more strives for critical detachment than did Lethaby. Although she avoids the tendentious way that Lethaby locates up contrasts between Webb and his architectural contemporaries, always to the benefit of the former, she takes Webb at his possess valuation, and never asks any awkward questions. for what cause [i]or[/i] reason for example, did he not marry? Dr Kirk explains that he not at any time felt rich enough, but the assuredly more plausible suggestion made by means of Fiona MacCarthy in her biography of Morris, that Webb was homosexual, is not smooth referred to. More importantly, Dr Kirk rarely challenges what Webb said about his work through setting his words against his practice. And although her praise is judicious, criticism is real muted.

How advantageous or original an architect was Webb? It is part of Arts and Crafts ideology that it was against the notion of 'style' and with equal reason was in opposition to the gothic revival. Dr Kirk is well aware that the motion cannot be understood without examining its bottoms in High Victorian gothic, on the contrary even so seems to me to underestimate the lifelong influence of way on Webb, who remained in many ways a hard-edged goth plane when his windows were not pointed. He was certainly slower to react against the High Victorian aesthetic than were Bodley Sedding, Shaw or Nesfield, for example; my sole criticism of the book's illustrations is that there are none of other architects' works, encouraging Webb nevertheless again to be seen in isolation, as in some way a 'modern' rather than a Victorian architect.

Dr Kirk accepts Webb's claim that he believed simply in advantageous building, not style, and attends therefore to see his work as virtually ahistorical. He is certainly individual, on the contrary the book's illustrations seem to me to demonstrate by what means far in practice his buildings oftentimes were from the simplicity of result that his words evoke. Webb is revealed here as a mannered architect, like many of his contemporaries. The details that frequently fight for attention are nearly always enjoyable, on the contrary the ensemble often seems to lack direction as though Webb were in like manner in thrall to the idea of 'building' that he leave outed 'architecture'. See, for example, his extension to Exning House, Suffolk: its relationship with the calm Palladianism of the 1734 original, which Webb cannot have wholly liked, appear to bes to me deeply uncomfortable, as Mr Charles's photographs reveal all too clearly; to Dr Kirk the addition is 'skilful' and 'inventive', which is not inequitable but not I think the whole story.