Спереводом 1. a tourist’s heart may leap at sight of the thames as it cuts through the heart of london because of the spectacle of massed totems such as parliament, whitehall, st. paul’s cathedral and the tower of london that rise majestically near it, and the 15 bridges bearing storybook names and images: westminster, waterloo, blackbriars, london bridge, and tower bridge. but nearly everything worth the price of a snapshot sits on the northern bank. 2. after the death of charles i in 1649 puritanical attitudes to the visual arts did not favour the development of architecture and the destruction, begun under henry viii, was renewed during and after civil war (1642-1646). whatever the merits of government under cromwell it was a sad period for architecture. 3. another change which affected architecture was the growth of an educated middle class. from chaucer to shakespeare, to ben jonson and inigo jones, to wren and newton, to hume, gibbon and robert adam and on to soane, carlyle, ruskin and morris, the “middle sort of people” were taking over and amplifying the secular role which had been played by clergy in earlier times when clerics were almost the only people who could read and write.
