The Master Builder:
William Butterfield and his times
Client: Lund Humphries, 2024
Author: Nicholas Olsberg
Hardback | 432pp | 280 x 240 mm
This project was several years in the making, spanning the pre- and post- Covid years, and it was fantastic to bring the design to completion in 2024. It is an unusual format, moving between richly illustrated historical essays and quiet arrangements of James Morris’s contemporary photography, commissioned specially for the book.
William Butterfield was the most daring, rigorous and brilliant architect of his age, whose 60-year practice spanned the entire Victorian era.
The book explores the changing emphasis of Butterfield’s work: first, the revival, rebuilding and reform of the country parish; next the role of the church and the agents of social health in the burgeoning town and city; third, the revolution in secondary education and college life; and finally, sites of refuge, sanctuary, repose and remembrance.






