Oxford is one of the jewels of European architecture, much loved and
much visited. The city offers an unparallelled collection of the best of
English building through the centuries. Matthew Rice's Oxford is a
feast of delightful watercolour illustrations and an informed and witty
text, explaining how the city came into being and what to look out for
today.
While the focus is on architectural detail, Rice also describes how the
city has been shaped by its history, most of all by generations of
patrons who had the education and the resources to commission work from
the greatest architects and builders of their day, an astonishing range
of which still stands.
More than anywhere else in England, it is possible in Oxford to take in
the history of English architecture simply by walking today's streets,
lanes, parks and meadows.
'A lovely book extensively illustrated with his idiosyncratic and witty
watercolours' Daily Telegraph on Building Norfolk.
'His pictures sing from the page. Unlike photographs, the medium allows
him to 'emphasise, exclude or exaggerate', and its washes are ideal for
rendering, say, the uneven colour of a wall of carrstone. Architectural
features have annotations in the author's own hand, and these can range
from the witty to exasperated' World of Interiors on Building Norfolk
