| Runtime: | 50 min |
| Executive Producer: | John Drummond |
| Theme Music Composer: | Sir Arthur Bliss |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Network: | BBC 2 |
| Num Episodes: | 8 |
Spirit of the Age is a 1975 documentary series of "Eight films on eight centuries of British Architecture". It was broadcast on BBC 2 between 31 October 1975 and 19 December 1975 as the BBC's contribution to the Council of Europe's European Architectural Heritage Year.[1]
Each episode examined a different era of British architecture was presented by an expert in his field. It was series produced by the arts specialist John Drummond.[2] Its title music was a specially-composed fanfare by the Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Arthur Bliss.[1]
A book of the same name was published to accompany the television series by BBC Books in 1975, later reprinted in 1992.[3] The series was repeated in May 1976, when a studio discussion "In Search of the Spirit of the Age" featuring Alec Clifton-Taylor and John Julius Norwich was broadcast to introduce the series.[4] The first episode, presented by Alec Clifton-Taylor, was his first television presenting experience, but led to Six English Towns which ran for three series from 1978.[5]
| Episode No. | Episode Title | UK Broadcast Date | Description | |
| 1 | "The Medieval World" | 31 October 1975 | Alec Clifton-Taylor surveys the surviving medieval buildings of England, from timber-framed cottages, parish churches and moated farms to the great castles and cathedrals, with a special focus on Lincoln Cathedral, which he considered the finest.[6] | |
| 2 | "A New Heaven, a New Earth" | 7 November 1975 | Roy Strong explores how new palaces built following the English Reformation gave English vernacular architecture a strong influence from the Italian Renaissance.[7] | |
| 3 | "The Cult of Grandeur" | 14 November 1975 | Robert Furneaux Jordan examines how three of England's most famous architects - Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor - brought about their English Baroque masterpieces after the Restoration of Charles II.[8] | |
| 4 | "A Sense of Proportion" | 21 November 1975 | John Julius Norwich considers the restraint and proportion of Palladian architecture of the 18th century.[9] | |
| 5 | "Landscape with Buildings" | 28 November 1975 | Sir John Summerson looks at the architectural era of the Adam brothers and John Nash, and how new ideas of the Romantic poets and painters saw a new relationship between landscapes and buildings.[10] | |
| 6 | "All That Money Could Buy" | 5 December 1975 | Mark Girouard examines how the prosperity of the Industrial Revolution and advent of the railways brought the Victorians an exuberance of both materials and style, with a special focus on Sir George Gilbert Scott's Gothic Revival masterpiece, the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras railway station.[11] | |
| 7 | "A Full Life and an Honest Place" | 12 December 1975 | Patrick Nuttgens investigates how William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement brought about societal change with the Garden city movement and a renewed focus on craftsmanship in buildings such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art.[12] | |
| 8 | "Dreams and Awakenings" | 19 December 1975 | Sir Hugh Casson reviews 20th-century architecture, from 1920s social experiments through to the Brutalist works of the 1960s.[13] |