Generosity as excess

Abstract

This paper explores the role of medieval references in London’s sewer works and the embankment projects by engineer Joseph Bazalgette, built for the Metropolitan Board of Works in the second half of the nineteenth century. We want to understand why an essentially utilitarian product such as London’s water and hygiene infrastructure was given over to such ‘generous’ ornamental form. The paper traces this generosity first through the historical links in the Abbey Mills Pumping Stations by architect Charles Henry Driver; then by examining the Victoria Embankment and the new urban walk it introduced. In the latter case, we claim the engineering works take the form of a compensatory fantasy by visually framing the new Houses of Parliament by Charles Barry. As the political centre of the British Empire, the Palace of Westminster – as the new Parliament increasingly came to be called – asserted its power by engaging a particular point of view, adopting a certain mode of appearance that sought to build a consensual, celebratory national identity based on the notion of Britain’s mythical (medieval) past. Our paper shows how such everyday ‘surrounding’ of the past was brought into urban practice with the construction of the Victoria Embankment.