Spirit of the Age

Country

United Kingdom

How it feels

This documentary series looks at British architecture across eight centuries. Each episode covers a different historical era, with an expert guide presenting the buildings and styles of that period.

educationalcontemplativemeasuredhistorically-mindednostalgicauthoritativestructuredformal

What happens

Spirit of the Age is a 1975 documentary series of "Eight films on eight centuries of British Architecture". It was broadcast on BBC 2 between 31 October 1975 and 19 December 1975 as the BBC's contribution to the Council of Europe's European Architectural Heritage Year. Each episode examined a different era of British architecture was presented by an expert in his field. It was series produced by the arts specialist John Drummond. Its title music was a specially-composed fanfare by the Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Arthur Bliss. A book of the same name was published to accompany the television series by BBC Books in 1975, later reprinted in 1992. The series was repeated in May 1976, when a studio discussion "In Search of the Spirit of the Age" featuring Alec Clifton-Taylor and John Julius Norwich was broadcast to introduce the series. The first episode, presented by Alec Clifton-Taylor, was his first television presenting experience, but led to Six English Towns which ran for three series from 1978. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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