THE ANGLO-CLASSIC STYLE

Comprises the reigns of Charles I. (1625-49),

The Commonwealth (1659-60),

Charles II (1660-85),

James (1685-89),

William and Marry (1689-1702).

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

The transitional Elizabethan and Jacobean style at length gave way before the influences of Inigo Jones and Wren, who are considered the founders of the Anglo-Classic style.

EXAMPLES

INIGO JONES

(1573-1652)

Long study in Italy, and especially at Vicenza, Palladio’s native town, influenced the work of Inigo Jones. He was invited to Copenhagen by the King of Denmark, but returned to England in 1604. He revisited Italy in 1612 for further study, and on his return introduced a purer Renaissance style, founded on Italian models and ornamentation. The Italian Architect Palladio was Inigo Jones’s favourite master in design, his works being carefully studied by him, and thus Palladio had a great influence on English architecture.

The commonwealth intervened, and checked the execution of many of Inigo Jones’s designs.

The following are among his principal Buildings:

Chilham Castle, Kent (A.D. 1614-1616), is a transitional example of brick with stone dressings, E-shaped façade, with radiating side wings forming a horseshoe court at the back, and with a porch having the baluster-columns of the earlier periods.

The Banqueting House, Whitehall (A.D. 1619-1621), is a part only of a Royal Palace, which was one of the grandest architectural conceptions of the Renaissance (No. 252). The greater part of the building was to have been of three stories, each 30 feet high, with a total height to the top of the parapet of 100 feet. The remainder, as curtain wings to the main blocks, and in design like the Banqueting House (No.252 C), was to be 75 feet high, divided into two stories. The plan (No. 252 E) was arranged round courtyards, one of which was to be circular, and the great court would have vied with that of the Louvre . In this design, proportion, elegance, and purity of detail, are more happily combined than in any other Renaissance scheme of the kind.

S. Paul Covent Garden (A.D. 1631-1638), is severe and imposing by reason of its simplicity and good proportions, but has been altered and rebuilt by subsequent architects. The arcades and buildings around the market were also designed by Inigo Jones.

Greenwich Hospital, the river façade of which was executed by John Webb, a pupil of Inigo Jones, has the two lower stories included under one huge Corinthian order. The hospital was afterwards added to by Sir Christopher Wren.

York Water Gate, London (A.D. 1626) (No. 525), executed by the master mason Nicholas Stone, formed the river entrance to Old York House, since destroyed. The gateway is now in the Embankment Gardens.

Houghton Hall, Beds (1616-1621); Raynham Hall, Norfolk (1630); Stoke Park, Northants (1630-34): the King’s (Queen’s) House, Greenwich (1639) (No. 238 A); Wilton House, Wilts (additions) (1640-1648); Coleshill, Berks (165); and Chevening House, Kent (No. 131 H,J), are examples of his country houses; and Lincoln’s Inn Chapel (1617-1623); House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Great Queen’s Street (1620); the Barber Surgeons’ Hall (1636-1637); and Ashburnham House, Westminster (1640), are examples of his town buildings.

SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN

(1632-1732)

Was a scholar and a mathematician, being Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College and at the University of Oxford, his early mathematical training fitting him for the constructive skill shown in his later works. As an architect, Wren lacked the more thorough technical education of Inigo Jones, and was not always able to clothe his constructive form in equally appropriate detail, but his study of French architecture at Paris and elsewhere in France, was an important part of his education. The works on the Louvre were then in progress, and constituted a great school of art, and, in consequence, Wren’s work shows more French influence than that of Inigo Jones, which pure Italian.

Palladio continued to be the inspirer of English work, as compared with Vignolia, whom the French followed, but Wren, who never visited Italy, often gave a semi-French turn to his designs, more especially in the decorative detail, as may be seen on comparing his work with that of Inigo Jones.

Many of his designs, in which he was obliged to study economy, indicate, however, much thought, all his designs, as Opie said, being mixed “with brains,” and indicating a careful study in the proportion of part to part

Many of these, as S. Paul and the City churches, were executed in Portland stone, which by its good weathering properties adds to their dignity and importance; while in domestic work, be used red brick with stone dressings, as at Hampton Court, Marlborough House, and elsewhere.

His great opportunity was the destruction of London by the great fire in 1666, after which he devised a grand plan for the, reconstruction, which was, however, abandoned for pecuniary and other reasons, but he was employed in a large number of churches, including S. Paul’s Cathedral, and other buildings.

His principal Ecclesiastical works were as follows:

St. Paul, London (1675-1710), which ranks amongst the finest Renaissance Cathedrals in Europe, was Wren’s masterpiece. The first design, of which there is fine model in the northern triforium of the Cathedral, was in plan a Greek cross (No.253), with a projecting western vestibule; but the influence of the clergy, who desired a long nave and choir suitable for ritualistic purposes, finally caused the selection of the medieval type of plan. This, as executed, consists of a great central space at the crossing, arranged somewhat similarly to Ely Cathedral, crowned by a dome, and having east and west a nave and choir in three bays with aisles, north and south transepts, and a projecting western vestibule with lateral chapels. The building has an internal length of 460 feet, a breadth including aisles of 100 feet, and an area of 60,000 square feet. An illustration showing its comparative size and disposition with S. Peter, Rome, the pantheon, Paris, and Cologne Cathedral, is given (No.213)

The internal piers (No. 253 B) are ornamented with pilasters of the Corinthian orders, supporting and entablature and attic, above which are formed the flat saucer-like domes, 86 feet high. Light is admitted by means of windows in the clerestory, which are not visible from the exterior. The wall surfaces have recently been decorated with glass mosaic, under Sir William Richmond, which has given the color it was originally intended to have. The dome as shown in No.253 B, is of triple construction. It is carried on eight piers (cf. Dome of the Invalides Paris), and is 109 feet at the base of the drum, diminishing to 102 feet at the top. The inner dome of brick-work 18 inches thick, has its summit 281 feet high, and the intermediate conical dome also of brickwork 18 inches thick, supports the stone lantern, ball and cross, which latter has a height of 365 feet. The outer dome is formed of timber covered with lead, and rest on the intermediate dome (No. 253 B). Eight openings are formed in the summit for the admission of light to the inner domes.

The exterior is exceedingly effective, and is made to group well with the central dome. The façades have two orders totaling 108 feet in height, the lower Corinthian and the upper composite, but as the aisles are only one story high, upper story on the flanks is a screen wall introduced to give dignity, and to act as a counterweight to the flying buttresses concealed behind it, which receive the thrust of the nave vault. The western front, 108 feet wide, and approached by a broad flight of steps, is flanked by two finely proportioned towers, 215 feet high, having between them the double storied portico of coupled columns supporting a pediment in which there is a fine representation of the conversion of S. Paul.

The dome externally is probably the finest example in Europe, the projecting masses of masonry at the meeting of nave and transepts expressing the support of the dome from the ground upwards. The colonnade to the drum is particularly effective, being formed of three-quarter columns attached to radiating buttresses walls, having every fourth inter columniation filled in solid, and thus giving an appearance of strength and solidity which is lacking in the pantheon, Paris. Behind the balustrade, known as the “Stone Gallery,” rises an attic above supporting the dome, which crowned with lantern and cross.

The poetess Joanna Baillie has well described the majestic appearance of S. Paul on foggy day:

“Rear in the sky,

‘Tis then St. Paul’s arrests the wandering eye;

The lower parts in switching mists conceal’d

The higher through some half-spent shower reveal’d.

So far from earth remov’d, that well I know,

Did not its form man’s artful structure show,

It might some lofty alpine peak be deem’d.

The eagle’s hunt, with cave and crevice seam’d.

Stretch’d wide on either hand, a rugged screen,

In lurid dimness nearer streets are seen,

Like shoreward billows of a troubled sea

Arrested in their cage.”

COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE

Wren was also responsible for the erection of some fifty-three City churches in the Renaissance style between 1670-1711. These are models of simplicity and restraint, and are notable for skillful planning on awkward and confined sites, and general suitability for protestant worship, in which a central preaching space is considered more important than the “long-drawn aisle” for professional purposes, characteristic of medieval churches.

Among the more important of these are the following;

S. Stephen, Walbrook (1672-1679) (No. 256), has original and ingenious planning, and is deservedly famous for the excellent effect produced by small means within a limited area, the sixteen columns, inclosed in a rectangle, carrying cross vaulting and a central cupola, the latter resting on eight of the columns.

Bow Church, Cheapside (1680), is the most successful of a type of Renaissance steeple (No. 255 A, B) of which Wren may be called the inventor, in which a square tower supports a pyramidal spire in receding stages clothed with classical details.

S. Bride, Fleet Street (1680) (Nos. 255 C, D 257), is another example generally considered less successful because of the telescope effect of similar stories, a fault which was avoided in Bow Church by the use of inverted consoles.

S. Martin, Ludgate, has a steeple similar in design, but exceedingly picturesque in the group that it forms in conjunction with Wren’s masterpiece, St. Paul’s Cathedrals.

S. Clemente Danes (1684) and S. James, Piccadilly (No. 257), are successful though plain examples of his galleried interiors.

The Western Towers of Westminster Abbey; S. Dunstan in the East (1698); S. Marry, Aldermary (1711); S. Michael, Cornhill (1721), are examples of his Gothic treatment of spires.

Pembroke College Chapel, Cambridge (1663-1664) was one of his earliest works.

The Secular works of Wren were numerous;

The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford (1664), is an evidence of his scientific skill in the constructive carpentry of the roof, and in the splendid acoustic properties of the ball.

The Inner Court, Trinity College, Oxford (1665); the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (1682); and the School Room at Winchester (1682), are other examples of his collegiate work.

The Monument, London Bridge (1671); the Fountain Court and Garden Façade of Hampton Court Palace (1690); Two Blocks of Greenwich Hospital furthest from the river, combined in a group at once picturesque and stately; Chelsea Hospital, the Royal Palace, Winchester (1683), Modern College, Blackheath, Marlborough House, Pall Mall (1709), and the Banqueting Hall (Orangery) in Kensington Palace Garden, are a few examples which show the large number of different classes of buildings upon which he was engaged, and their suitability to the several purposes for which they were designed.

The Temple, London (1674-1684) with its plain brickwork façades and interesting wooden doorways, is an example of his simpler style to which character is given, as in the principal entrance gateway to Fleet Street.