Book summary

Architectural historian Steven M. Bedford presents this biographical survey of one of America's fundamental classical architects, John Russell Pope. Most of the projects featured here date from 1910 to 1937, and many rank among the most important historical buildings in their respective countries: the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, and the Duveen Sculpture Gallery at the British Museum, London, which features the famous Elgin Marbles.

Media reviews

"With striking new photographs by Jonathan Wallen and a clearly written text, this monograph is the first to assess Pope's achievement. Regrettably, it suffers from several problems. It presents Pope's work in chapters organized around the categories of residential, commercial, public, university, museum and monumental structures. This makes it static, depriving it of a sense of historical progression, for if Pope's work changed slowly, his times did not....[W]hile this book achieves a partial success as a presentation of Pope's architecture, it fails to probe his work's complex significance in American cultural and architectural history."