Volume 31, Number 3 · March 1, 1984
Twilight of the Quads
By David Piper
Unbuilt Oxford
by Howard Colvin
Yale University Press, 198 pp., $14.95 (paper)
In Heaven, so we are instructed in the New Testament, are many mansions. Though we have no dimensions, no ground plans let alone elevations, for these residences, they must, by definition, be ideally perfect: heavenly. For Xanadu, according to Coleridge, Kubla Khan a 'stately pleasure dome' did decree. The poem is one of the most magically evocative in the English language, but the architectural image that it evokes is vague, shimmering like a majestic cumulus cloud in the sunset (or like 'cloud-capped towers' for that matter). Plans and elevations—the measurable, buildable, definition of what was actually built—are lacking, and if they were to be found, what relationship would they bear to Kubla Khan's original vision and original decree? How did the pleasure dome stand in relation to Alph, the sacred river? Was Capability Brown called in for the landscaping, or was it subsequently re-jigged by Humphry Repton?
Review, 2194 words
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