Presenting Present London in Early 19th Century to Foreigners through Architectural Panoramas

In the early 19th century, the city of London was a spreading city, with some relevant new buildings. City with monuments was generally represented and communicated through drawing and engravings. Just before photography, the urban landscape started to emerge as focus of the representation, and streets became a main subject. In the first decades of the century indeed, important urban changes were introduced in London by the Regency, in particular by the construction of Regent Street, the new commercial thoroughfare. The paper wants to investigate how the new London urban landscape of early 19th century was told in architectural panoramas, paying specific attention to the contemporary city. The publishing of these views of London had to be intended also as a means to travellers and for travelling. In particular the paper focuses on the case of the panoramic overview ‘Tallis's London Street Views' that was openly ‘intended to Assist Strangers Visiting the Metropolis through all its Mazes without a Guide'. Nevertheless, this kind of book was not just for travellers but also for people living abroad that had the opportunity to start to visit London from their countries. Publishing was also another important factor. The ‘Tallis's Views' were published periodically as a journal and they were retained in bookstores all over the world, so that people living outside London could have a look at the new London. The peculiarity of the ‘Tallis's View' was to present streets with plans and elevations as a general overview and also with a perspective view. Above each façade there is also the indication of the name of the shopkeeper and the kind of shop. The observer point was in the size of the view and the kind of representation of the drawings that were long side folded in order to show the streets as a whole. The paper also will consider this kind of panorama in a comparative perspective.