The Palace of Westminster, part of a UNESCO world heritage site and home to the British Parliament, is facing a major refurbishment. If current proposals are approved by Parliament, it will be subject to the most substantial construction program since its completion more than 150 years ago. Numerous books have been published on the history of the palace, including important monographs by Alexandra Wedgewood, M. H. Port, and Christine Riding and Jacqueline Riding. A most recent addition to this body of literature is Caroline Shenton's book Mr Barry's War: Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament after the Great Fire of 1834. Successfully consolidating and building on the findings of earlier studies, Shenton provides the most comprehensive account of the process underlying the creation of the Houses of Parliament. It offers new insights into Charles Barry's role as the project architect, reexamining in hitherto unseen detail the serious practical, interpersonal, and political challenges with which he was faced during the delivery of the project. The latter included the pressures of working with Parliament, a complex client composed of several different parties, each acting independently. These issues, many of which were outside Barry's direct control, led to the project being three times over budget and sixteen years behind schedule. Without reviewing these conditions, she argues convincingly, his achievements as architect cannot be fully appreciated.

Organizing her material into main four sections—“Fire,” “Water,” “Air,” and “Earth,” respectively—Shenton retraces the project developments chronologically, starting with the architectural competition held in 1835 after a fire had destroyed the original medieval palace, and ending with the completion of Clock Tower in 1859. In the three chapters in “Fire” Shenton covers the period between 1834 and 1837 and focuses on the developments leading from the competition and selection of Barry and Augustus Pugin's architectural scheme to the approval of their plans and budget. Covering the period from 1837 to 1843, in “Water” Shenton examines the transition from planning to construction. With the six chapters in “Air” and “Earth” she explores in great depth how Barry succeeded in managing the political pressures of the project, as well as personal and professional relationships with members of his project team. Shenton characterizes Barry as a “skilled architect and business manager” (62) who was as much project manager as art architect. These traits distinguished him mostly clearly from Pugin, and Shenton provides an extraordinary account of the dynamic within their seventeen-year professional relationship. Examining the original letters, Shenton demonstrates that they were bound in a true partnership and that their relationship, despite disagreements about salary and working practices, was largely harmonious and affectionate. Shenton argues that their abilities as architects were complementary, not conflicting, and illuminates why neither Barry nor Pugin could have accomplished the project on his own. She thereby challenges the focus of earlier publications on the disharmony between the two architects.

Shenton focuses on people, relationships, and the wider social context, building on an overarching premise that the challenges were primarily driven by personalities of the individuals involved. This, it could be argued, underplays the significance of the technical design challenges Barry's team were facing over the same period. Considering the book from architectural perspective, I highlight two closely interrelated areas that have not been adequately addressed in this otherwise extraordinary book. The first is the contribution of David Boswell Reid, a physician who was employed to develop the ventilation and air-conditioning system. The second is the inherent challenge of cross-disciplinary collaboration in architectural projects. Shenton argues that Reid's failure to establish a successful cooperation with Barry was due to personality. She writes that “there is no doubt that personally he [Reid] was vain and bombastic, and wholly unwilling to work cooperatively with other experts” (166). While Reid's personality was an important contributing factor, Shenton's attribution of it as a seemingly sole factor downplays the magnitude of the challenge of successfully integrating specialists in large building projects. The design of the ventilation system was also not a marginal technical concern. It was inherently invasive, both physically and from a design methodology perspective. It affected a wide range of design aspects, ranging from the overall architectural form and layout to the construction detailing and questions of fire safety. Moreover, Shenton dismisses Reid's scheme as a “crackpot plan” (142), while his actual contributions to the design of the palace remain unmentioned. This omission makes it difficult for the reader to fully appreciate the significant role of technological ambitions in the design development that had been explored in studies by Robert Bruegmann (1978), Donald Prowler (1977), and Peter Collins (1998). Although his original scheme was never fully implemented, Reid established the physical infrastructure for a stack-driven ventilation system that remained in continual use for more than ninety years.

Shenton writes in a more descriptive than analytical style, yet many valuable conclusions can be drawn from her work. Reviewing the historic events from today's perspective, the history of the Palace of Westminster offers important lessons for contemporary practice. The book is an essay on managing the involvement of Parliament in the delivery of building projects, an issue that will undoubtedly become critical in the forthcoming restoration. More recent projects, such as the Scottish Parliament or the United Nation's Capital Masterplan, illustrate that these issues are still relevant today.