This is an entertaining account of the personal and professional rivalry between two outstanding 19th-century architects - Decimus Burton, rich and genteel, society figure, designer and prime member of the Athenaeum, the leading exponent of the classical style of architecture, and the fiercely energetic Augustus Pugin, a fervent advocate of the neo-gothic. Their building, as their lifestyles and beliefs, could hardly have been more different, and they carried controversy and argument with them in a way not at all unfamiliar in today's architectural climate.