The Georgian era
Under the four King Georges, Britain built Palladian country houses, landscape parks and towns of uniform terraces around squares and crescents.
Lord Burlington and his circle took Palladio as the model for country houses, and the landscape park replaced the straight gardens. Bath received its circus and crescents of terraced houses, and Edinburgh its New Town from 1767.
John Soane built the Bank of England and made his London home a museum full of light shafts and mirrors. Robert Smirke’s British Museum received a front of 44 Ionic columns.