** LECTURE POSTPONED – due to the social distancing required by the Covid-19 pandemic, this lecture will be postponed until a later date.**
As part of the celebration of 150 years of the Arlington Baths Club, I will be lecturing about Owen Jones on 25 March 2020.
‘The Arlington Baths, The Alhambra and Owen Jones: Islamic Architecture and Design in the 19th Century’
Wednesday 25 March, 7pm in the Members Lounge, Arlington Baths Club
Book for free at Eventbrite
The architect, designer and educator Owen Jones (1809-1874) was a hugely influential figure in Victorian design. Before his book The Grammar of Ornament (1856) became a bestseller, he published Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of The Alhambra: From Drawings Taken on the Spot in 1834 and 1837 (1842-5). This beautifully illustrated book popularized Islamic architecture and design throughout Victorian Britain, a style used for smoking rooms, billiard rooms, swimming pools and Turkish baths.
I will look at the Arlington Baths Club, in particular the Turkish room (added 1875), in the wider context of the Victorian’s love for the exotic, and Jones’s belief that good design was necessary for a healthy society.
The Arlington Baths Club, Glasgow, is the oldest private baths club in Britain, and perhaps the world. It opened on 1st August 1871, and was designed by architect John Burnet (1814-1901).
Dr Ailsa Boyd 
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