Rebuilding The Mother Of Parliaments- Palace Of Westminster, London SW1

John Goodall examines the fascinating story of the surviving Victorian interiors of one of Britain’s most familiar buildings and the seat of Parliament

- John Goodall

FOLLOWING the destruction of much of the Palace of Westminster by fire on October 16, 1834, an architectural competition was held to identify the designer of its successor. The winner, announced in 1836, was a 39-year-old architect, one Charles Barry. He continued to work on this project until his death in 1860.

Barry designed the new building in an eclectic Gothic style (his son later claimed he would have preferred the ‘Italian style’), an idiom that celebrated the roots of the English constitution in the medieval past. His designs drew particular inspiration from the Perpendicular architecture of Henry VII’s Chapel, begun in 1503, in neighbouring Westminster Abbey, one of the most consistently admired medieval buildings in Britain. Collaborating with Barry in the project was the celebrated evangelist of the Gothic Revival, A. W. N. Pugin.

The new palace was conceived on the grandest scale, as befitted the seat of the parliament of what was then the richest and most powerful nation in the world. At the heart of the complex is Central Lobby, a vast octagonal space that connected the remnants of the medieval palace with the working interiors of its modern successor.