Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (January 30th 1902 - August 18th 1983) is a historian of art, and more particularly of architecture, British born German.

Wire of a Jewish tradesman, Pevsner was born with Leipzig (Saxony). He studied the history of art in the universities of Leipzig, Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt-amndts-Hand. He obtained his doctorate in 1924, then worked with the museum of Dresden until 1928. He taught at the university of Göttingen the five following years. He left Germany for Great Britain in 1934 to flee the Nazism. He then taught in the universities of London, Oxford, Birmingham and Cambridge. He became British citizen in 1946.

He owes his reputation with his masterly work of 46 volumes on the architectural heritage of England, which he examined county by county: The Buildings off England (1951-74). In the medium of the architects, it is rather by Pioneers off the modern movement: from William Morris to Walter Gropius, London, Faber & Faber, 1936,240p.