Review of 'An Outline of European Architecture' in the Evening Standard

"Nikolaus Pevsner's An Outline of European Architecture (Thames and Hudson, £28) was my introduction to the subject 60 years ago, yet his narrative, flowing over two millennia and more, from ancient Greece to Gropius, still makes simple sense.

Two significant changes bring it up to date: a postscript by the architect Michael Forsyth reaches from Bauhaus to Bilbao and Foster's unfortunate revisions at the British Museum, and this new edition is wonderfully illustrated in colour.

The text has, of course, an English bias - Rococo is hardly to be found, Vienna is mentioned only for its Ringstrasse, Bavaria is all but forgotten, and the late Baroque wonders of Turin are reduced to one small illustration of the dome of San Lorenzo, its extreme ingenuity incomprehensible without the walls and floor.

This is thus still a beginner's book, the safe architectural equivalent of Gombrich's Story of Art."

- Review by Brian Sewell, Evening Standard