Pugin revolutionized taste by explaining the principles of architectural design, and, further, in claiming that only pointed architecture fully embodied these principles, he provided the intellectual basis for making Gothic architecture a serious cause instead of just one more style in the architect's repertoire. More ambitiously, he meant to rescue architecture and its related decorative arts from stylistic confusion and structural dishonesty.
The only child of Augustus Charles Pugin, a French émigré, and Catherine Welby Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was born in London on 1 March 1812. As a boy he attended Christ's Hospital, and, after completing his studies there, he entered his father's office to prepare himself for a career in architecture. He proved such an apt pupil that in 1827, when he was only fifteen years old, he was commissioned to design furniture for Windsor Castle. His next important job was stage scenery for the ballet Kenilworth in 1831. These early endeavors in Gothic design foretokened his later work in the Gothic Revival, even as his purchase of a boat at about this time indicated the other great love of his life--sailing.
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