THE Charles Dickens bicentenary has been seared into the public consciousness with celebratory articles and programmes. Dickens was born on 7 February 1812; and another great Victorian, Augustus Welby Pugin, was born less than a month later, on 1 March. His current reputation has not, however, benefited from the same volume of articles and programmes, despite his massive impact on Victorian Britain.

Rather than simply sing about building Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land, Pugin set about rebuilding Britain as part of Gothic Catholic Christendom, by teaching that architecture, society, morality, and faith were all interconnected, and that the finest buildings could be raised only when the society from which these buildings emerged was equally fine.

Pugin brought the Gothic Revival in this country and beyond to a new level of intensity and significance by arguing that Gothic was Christian and Christian was Gothic. Archbishop Bernard Longley has explained that this “was principally because of an innate honesty that he saw in the way that Gothic design emerged from and represented the purpose of a building, expressing its use and somehow describing its occupants and their faith”.

Under Pugin’s influence, the Gothic Revival became, as Steve Meacham has written, “the way people built churches and perceived churches should be”.

Pugin’s Gothic designs, however, were not confined simply to churches. He specialised in everything from Gothic furniture and metalwork to Gothic fabrics and wallpapers, and the influence of his designs, through this great variety of media, can still be found around us, whether we are looking at suburban houses, aristocratic mansions such as Alton Towers, village schools, or railway stations.

As Kenneth Clark, writing of the Gothic Revival, said: “It changed the face of England, building and restoring churches all over the countryside, and filling our towns with Gothic banks and grocers, Gothic lodging houses and insurance companies, Gothic everything from a town hall to a slum public house. . .”

Some of Pugin’s finest designs include the clock tower for the Palace of Westminster (Big Ben), the interiors of the House of Lords, the St Giles RC Church, Cheadle, and his own house, The Grange, at Ramsgate. Yet it is in Birmingham that an anniversary trail of Pugin-associated sites has been created.

Pugin designed or contributed to six main sites in Birmingham, and St Chad’s Cathedral was his greatest achievement. Birmingham was also where the working relationship between Charles Barry and Pugin began, as together they built the now demolished King Edward’s School in New Street. From there, they went on to rebuild the Houses of Parliament. Many of the interior fittings for the Palace of Westminster, designed by Pugin, were made in the Hardman workshops in Birmingham.

In 1838, Pugin persuaded his friend John Hardman to turn his button-making business to making metalwork and later stained glass for his new churches. Based in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, John Hardman & Co. quickly rose to fame as makers of fine medieval-style metalwork based on Pugin’s research, drawings, and publications. Their work found its way into churches and cathedrals in the UK and throughout the world.

An exhibition, “Entwined: Pugin and Hardman”, at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter explores the business and personal links between the two families. This show also includes fine examples of their ecclesiastical and domestic metalwork, including candlesticks, a chalice, claret jug, crucifix, and monstrance.

More examples of Pugin’s designs can be found in the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, including metalwork by Hardman, tiles by Minton, and a table by J. G. Crace. One of the largest items on display is the rood screen from St John’s, Alton, in Staffordshire.

A fine late-medieval Brussels wood carving, which Pugin may have acquired, an Early Netherlandish triptych of the Deposition, which he owned, and a solid oak table with an elaborately carved base, which he designed in about 1835, can all be found at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts. An exquisite stained-glass design can be seen at Winterbourne House near by.

As with all such trails, opening dates and times should be carefully checked in advance. Locations such as the current site of King Edward’s School or St Mary’s Convent and the Hardman Home in Handsworth can be viewed only on special open days, while other aspects of the trail, such as the Hardman written archive and the King Edward’s School Pugin collection, are primarily for online viewing.

Nothing substitutes, however, for the actual experience of seeing buildings such as St Chad’s Cathedral. Sir John Betjeman, for example, commented that, while “St Chad’s is not much to look at outside . . . inside it fairly takes the breath away: it soars to the heavens; its long, thin pillars are like being in a mighty forest. The roof is a bit flimsy-looking, but the flimsiness is redeemed by the brilliant colours. The stained glass glows like jewels. . . . the altars blaze with gilding and colour.”

Nothing substitutes, however, for the actual experience of seeing buildings such as St Chad’s Cathedral. Sir John Betjeman, for example, commented that, while “St Chad’s is not much to look at outside . . . inside it fairly takes the breath away: it soars to the heavens; its long, thin pillars are like being in a mighty forest. The roof is a bit flimsy-looking, but the flimsiness is redeemed by the brilliant colours. The stained glass glows like jewels. . . . the altars blaze with gilding and colour.”

“Pugin, Dürer and the Gothic”, a small exhibition of prints and a drawing, at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, is an attempt to illustrate where the roots of Pugin’s creativity lie. He was inspired by, among others, Albrecht Dürer, widely recognised as the greatest German Renaissance artist. A story has it that the 15-year-old Pugin was encountered by a certain John Gawler Bridge, of Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, sketching in the British Museum. Pugin was studying prints of the works of Dürer, and Bridge was so impressed with his skill that he commissioned several silver designs from the young Pugin.

Throughout his career, Pugin used Dürer’s works as inspiration for his own architectural and interior designs including furniture, tiles, wallpaper, and stained-glass windows. This contribution to the Pugin Trail showcases the eight prints and single drawing by Dürer from the Barber’s collection, plus prints by the 17th-century Northern European artists Wenceslaus Hollar and Jacques Callot, whose work Pugin is known to have owned.

Printmaking in woodcut and engraving spread from Northern Europe to Northern Italy during the early 15th century. Around the year 1500, prints by Dürer were much copied by Italian printmakers such as Marcantonio Raimondi, whose work features prominently in “The Age of Leonardo: Christian Themes in Italian Renaissance Prints”, also at the Barber Institute.

Such printmakers collaborated with local artists to record their designs, and copied paintings independently to make wholly reproductive prints. Some 50 of Raimondi’s 250 engravings are based on compositions by Raphael. This collaboration between printmaker and artist was one of the most important in the history of European printmaking.

From Raimondi’s series of the Life of the Virgin to Agostino Carracci’s Ecce Homo, this display examines Renaissance and Mannerist ideals in the depiction of Christian subjects. The recognisable symbolism and iconography found in such religious art proved an effective tool for popular devotion when these works were reproduced as prints. Such prints represent an important vehicle by which Christianity was extended to and received by the wider community.

The influence of such prints was still felt 300 years later, when Pugin sketched Dürer’s work in the British Museum, and his own name was made with the publication in 1836 of Contrasts, a book of satirical “before and now” etchings, through which he contrasted the glories of medieval architecture and its civilised society with the tired classical constructions that were the product of the degraded modern industrial city.

At the time when he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, Pugin felt “ready to build Jerusalem”. By the end of his short but productive life, he said: “I have passed my life thinking of fine things, studying fine things, designing fine things, and realising poor ones.”

The contrast between what he intended and what he achieved may have been great in his own mind; but the Barber Institute’s coupling of displays relating to Pugin and Leonardo may be instructive in an unintended sense, as Leonardo, too, had a string of uncompleted works and grandiose failures behind him, besides his undoubted masterpieces.

The Birmingham Pugin Trail will not take you to many of Pugin’s own masterpieces, but, if followed, can reveal much about the inspirations and collaborations that underpinned the achievements of this remarkable Victorian, whose works, for good or ill, came to define the image that many have of the built environment of Britain, and were an expression of his faith.

For details of the Birmingham Pugin Trail, see www.bmag.org.uk/museum-of-the-jewellery-quarter/pugin-bicentenary-2012. “Entwined: Pugin & Hardman” at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, 75-79 Vyse Street, Hockley, Birmingham, runs until 26 January 2013. Phone 0121 554 3598.