My intention in these talks is to take a look at the last hundred years; not as traditional history, but as seen through the ideas that informed certain key buildings; to look at the social background against which they were built; and to study them through the eyes of an architect and builder, so as to describe them to other architects and builders.

I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the three short talks with slides of the first and the last building that I shall be describing. The first is the Red House near London that was designed by Philip Webb for and with William Morris and others and was finished in 1859.