Pembroke College Courtyard
Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905)
1875-77
Red brick and stone
Trumpington Street, Cambridge
Other Views of Pembroke College Cambridge
Photograph, caption, and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee
Nikolaus Pevsner writes witheringly of Waterhouse's work at Pembroke that this architect was the last person "to be guided by respect for the character of old work. In every case where he added at Pembroke he spoiled something that was already there and replaced it by something out of keeping with Cambridge" (127). As for what was already there, Pembroke College originally had a compact "Old Court," the first of its kind in Cambridge, which included all the buildings needed for a college (Chapel, Library, Hall, accommodation etc), and the south and east parts of this had to be pulled down for the Victorian rebuilding programme (see Rawle, who shows a 17c. print of the Old Court, 72). As for what Waterhouse put in its place, this has provoked even sharper criticism, not only from Pevsner but from other architectural historians as well. However, the Library does not seem to attract the same kind of ire as the Red Buildings along Trumpington Street. Tim Rawle, who agrees that the Victorian rebuilding programme was "destructive," nevertheless writes appreciatively that the Library "followed a few years later, its polygonal spire providing a suitable foil to the picturesque pavilion roof of Red Buildings" (102).
Sources
Pevsner, Nikolaus. The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2nd ed. 1970.
Rawle, Tim. Cambridge Architecture. London: Deutsch, 1985.
Last modified 11 July 2008