How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

magnificence was entirely beyond the King’s means and the only part erected was a small portion of one of the interior wings—the Banqueting House, which now abuts on the street that retains the name, Whitehall.

The façade that it presents to the latter is in the Paladian style and of extreme purity. Constructed throughout of fine, rusticated masonry, it consists, above the basement, of two stories, decorated, respectively, with the Ionic and the Corinthian orders, while a well-proportioned cornice, surmounted by a balustrade, defines the sky-line. An admirable feature, apparently originated by Inigo Jones, for it is not found in Italy, is the slight prominence given to the central three window bays by substituting columns for pilasters and breaking the entablature and cornice round them. The interior contains a handsome vaulted hall, divided into three aisles.

Another design by Jones, which recalls Palladio’s Vicenza gates is the Water Gate, now in the Embankment Gardens, which formerly was the water entrance from the river to old York House, which has been destroyed. He also built S. Paul, Covent Garden (1638), a severe but imposing design that suffers from its proximity to the market, the arcades of which are also his. His design for the river façade for Greenwich Hospital, in which the two lower stories are included in one colossal Corinthian order, was executed by his pupil, John Webb. Among the examples of Jones’s domestic buildings are Raynham Hall, Norfolk; Wilton House, Wiltshire; Chevening House, Kent; Stoke Park, Northamptonshire, and Coleshill, Berkshire.

But the erection of country houses and indeed all architectural activity were seriously interrupted by the Civil War and the consequent unsettled conditions.

Wren.—More fortunate in opportunity was Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), upon whom it devolved to repair some of the damage wrought by the Great Fire of London, in 1666. He was never in Italy and his foreign experience was limited to six months in Paris, where Bernini’s design for the Louvre, fortunately never executed, was being commenced. Consequently he did not possess the technical equipment of Inigo Jones and was not always successful in the decorative sheathing which he applied to the construction. It was on the constructive side that his genius lay and in this he was assisted by his previous career as a mathematician and professor of astronomy at Gresham College and the University of Oxford.

Wren’s earliest architectural works, executed before he went to Paris, were the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge and the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. His scientific knowledge was demonstrated in the ceiling of the latter, which has a span of 68 feet. After the fire of London he planned to lay out the devastated part of the city on new and broader lines; but the reconstruction was defeated, as city replanning is liable to be in our own day, by the opposition of property owners. Meanwhile a plan he had previously made for the enlargement of S. Paul’s was now superseded by the necessity of erecting an entirely new building.

S. Paul’s.—The plan of S. Paul’s is a cross with short arms; both the choir and nave, comprising three bays, flanked, like the transepts, with aisles. The choir terminates in a small apse; the transepts in semi-circular porticoes and the west end in a vestibule with lateral chapels.

The internal piers are embellished with Corinthian pilasters, supporting an entablature and attic, the latter containing clerestory windows, which, however, though giving light to the interior, are not visible from outside. The ceilings, throughout, are composed of repetitions of flat, saucer-like domes.

But the dominant feature of the interior is the octagon at the crossing, which comprises the width not only of the nave and choir but also of the aisles. It permits four great arches, opening into the nave, choir, and transepts, and four smaller and lower arches, connecting with the ambulatory, which is formed by the aisles. This arrangement is somewhat similar to the octagon of Ely Cathedral and may be compared with the plan of the dome of the Invalides.

Surmounting the eight pendentives of St. Paul’s is a circular gallery, known as the “Whispering Gallery,” above which rises a circular peristyle. The latter’s entablature supports the interior dome, which mounts to a height of 281 feet from the floor.

In recent years the barrenness of the interior has been considerably relieved by glass mosaic decorations, designed by Sir William Richmond.

The Façades comprise two stories; the lower embellished with the Corinthian order, the upper with the Composite; the line of division being at the height of the aisles. Thus, on the north and south sides of the building, the upper part of the façade is only a screen, carried up for the purpose of composing with the mass of the dome. The flying buttresses of the latter are concealed behind it, while light penetrates through it to the clerestory windows. Admirable features of the lower story of the side façades are the semi-circular porticoes, of beautiful design, which project from the ends of the transepts. Excellently proportioned, if somewhat bald, is the west façade, which is a double storied portico of coupled columns, supporting a pediment. This is flanked by two towers, which rise above the sky-line in diminishing stories, terminating in bell-shaped cupolas. Not only are they fine compositions in themselves, but they are also designed in fine relation to the dominating feature of the dome.

The Dome.—The latter, in mass and outline and in the relation achieved between its several parts, can lay claim to being the most majestic dome of the Renaissance. Among the elements that enter into its impressiveness is the emphasis given to the lowest course of masonry, which well suggests the union of the nave, choir, and transepts and forms a substantial stylobate to the peristyle. The latter, again, is exceptionally fine in proportion. In appearance, relatively higher than that of S. Peter’s and related with more freedom to the mass above, it is formed of coupled columns attached to radiating buttress walls; every fourth space between the columns being filled with solid masonry, which is relieved in the way of light and shadow by a decorated niche. The effect is at once strong, stately, and of airy lightness. Very fine also, in its peculiar accent of effectiveness is the proportion of the upper drum to the superincumbent mass of the dome, whose curve is lifted to a culminating springiness by the height and freedom and sensitive proportions of the lantern.

No less remarkable is the scientific knowledge expended in the construction of this externally superb masterpiece. It is composed, like the domes of the Invalides and the Panthéon in Paris, of three shells, although the arrangement is different. For the intermediate shell consists of a cone of brickwork, 18 inches thick. It springs from behind the upper drum, and on it bears the stone lantern, ball, and cross; the last being 365 feet above the ground level. It also helps to bear the weight of the timber supports of the outer shell, which is constructed entirely of wood, sheathed with lead. The inner dome, resting on the peristyle, is of brickwork, and of the same thickness as the cone.

Wren’s Churches.—Between the years 1670 and 1711 were erected some fifty-three London churches, in which Wren displayed remarkable versatility in adapting Renaissance design, not only to the different conditions which the crowded site involved but also to the requirements of Protestant worship, which laid so much stress on preaching and needed chiefly an auditorium. A famous example is that of S. Stephen’s Walbrook, in which sixteen columns support a coffered ceiling, interrupted by a pendentive dome. This is the predominating feature, for its diameter is 43 feet in a total width of 60 feet.

Wren’s churches, however, are better and more characteristically known by the variety of steeples, which may be considered an invention of his own. From a square tower, which is treated as the main feature of the front façade, they pass into circular or octagonal stories, diminishing in diameter, clothed with Renaissance details, and terminating in a slender spire. Their beauty consists in the variety and proportions given to the several parts, achieving an ensemble of peculiar elegance. Occasionally they suggest a certain mechanicalness of repetition; hence the example which is considered the best is that of S. Mary-le-Bow. For here the repetition of the orders is interrupted by a story composed of inverted consoles, the effect of which is to vary not only the character of the embellishment, but also, by introducing the contrast of a curve, the regularity of successive steps. Wren’s inexhaustible activity is represented also, among many other examples, by the Monument at London Bridge; The Fountain Court and Garden Façade of Hampton Court; Chelsea Hospital; Marlborough House, Pall Mall; and Temple Bar. The last, forming the entrance gate to the City of London proper, has been removed from its old site at the foot of Fleet Street, and set up in Theobald’s Park, Northamptonshire.

He lies buried beneath the choir of his masterpiece, a tablet bidding you, “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.”

Hawksmoor, Gibbs.—The most notable of Wren’s pupils were Nicholas Hawksmoor (1666-1763) and James Gibbs (1683-1754). The latter published a book of his own designs, which, as we shall see, exercised a considerable influence on the beginnings of architecture in the American Colonies.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STYLES

ANGLO-CLASSICAL. QUEEN ANNE. GEORGIAN

This period comprises the reigns of Anne (1702-14) and of the three Georges (1714-1820). In the case of large mansions it represents a continuation of the “Anglo-Palladian” style, with an increased importance given to the use of columns, especially in porticoes. Hence it is sometimes called the “Anglo-Classical,” or more specifically, the “Portico Style.”

In less pretentious houses the tendency was to avoid columns and ornamental details and to rely upon the sterling character of plain brick work. The so-called Flemish bond was introduced, a method of binding a wall into solidity by laying the bricks in courses of alternate stretchers and headers—bricks, that is to say, laid, respectively lengthwise with and at right angles to the outer surface of the walls. It differed from the English bond, in which stretchers and headers were laid in alternate courses. A single projecting string course might mark the division of the stories, while several, projecting one over the other, would form a cornice under the eaves of the tiled roof. Or this arrangement might be replaced by a wooden cornice. Windows, owing to the tax upon them, were reduced in number and often increased in size, especially in the direction of height. Correspondingly, doors were heightened until they had an effect of narrowness. In all these particulars, as also in the introduction of pediment-shaped gables and wooden cornices under the eaves of the tiled roofs, there was a disposition to follow the seventeenth century type of Dutch and Flemish domestic architecture. This so-called “Queen Anne” style—though it is more a manner than a style—involved a certain primness of effect, quite in keeping with the somewhat pedantic attitude of the time, but is characterised by simple refinement and suggestion of comfortable domesticity.

By the time of George III—1760 and onward—certain modifications were introduced into the Anglo-Classical style, which are sometimes characterised by the distinction, “Georgian.”

Anglo-Classical.—The Anglo-Classical is frankly a style of ostentation and magnificent pretension. So far as one man could be responsible for what was in effect an expression of the temper of an age that was amassing great wealth in the Indian and Chinese trade, the man was Sir John Vanbrugh. But it is significant that he first became famous as a writer of witty and spicy comedies. Then he “turned his attention to” architecture and wrote to his friend Tonson, the publisher, for a “Palladio.” With the aid of this he qualified himself as an architectural designer and having already gained the favour of society by his talents as a wit was readily accepted as an architect, enjoying particularly the patronage of Queen Anne, who