Spirit of England - The Arts - Architecture

Great English Architecture
    
   
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Fan Vaulting - King's College - Cambridge

King's College Chapel is the chapel to King's College of the University of Cambridge, and is one of the finest examples of late Gothic (Perpendicular) English architecture,while its early Renaissance rood screen separating the nave and chancel, erected in 1532-36 in a striking contrast of style, has been called by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, "the most exquisite piece of Italian decoration surviving in England".
The windows of King's College Chapel are some of the finest in the world from their era.
There are 12 large windows on each side of the chapel, and larger windows at the east and west ends.
With the exception of the west window they are by Flemish hands and date from 1515 to 1531. Barnard Flower, the first non-Englishman appointed as the King's Glazier, completed four windows.
Gaylon Hone with three partners (two English and one Flemish) are responsible for the east window and 16 others between 1526 and 1531.
The final four were made by Francis Williamson and Symon Symondes.
The one modern window is that in the west wall, which is by the Clayton and Bell company and dates from 1879.


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Sir Christopher Wren




The Queens House
Sir Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren (20 October 1632 – 25 February 1723) is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.
He was responsible for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, onLudgate Hill, completed in 1710.
Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a notable astronomer, geometer, andmathematician-physicist, as well as an architect.
He was a founder of the Royal Society (president 1680–82), and his scientific work was highly regarded by Sir Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal.



The Queens House
Sir Christopher Wren




The Queens House
Sir Christopher Wren




Greenwich Palace
Sir Christopher Wren

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Osterly House
Robert Adam

Robert Adam (3 July 1728 – 3 March 1792) was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his older brother John, Robert took on the family business, which included lucrative work for the Board of Ordnance, after William's death.
In 1754 he left for Rome, spending nearly five years on the continent studying architecture under Charles-Louis Clérisseau and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. On his return to Britain he established a practice in London, where he was joined by his younger brother James.
Here he developed the "Adam Style", and his theory of "movement" in architecture, based on his studies of antiquity and became one of the most successful and fashionable architects in the country.
Adam held the post of Architect of the Kings Works from 1761 to 1769.
Robert Adam was leader of the first phase of the classical revival in England and Scotland from around 1760 until his death.
He influenced the development of Western architecture, both in Europe and in North America.
Adam was not content with providing houses for his clients but very ready to design the fittings and accessories as well.

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Sir John Nash
Sir Thomas Lawrence




Cumberland Terrace - London
Sir John Nash




Nash Crescent - Regent's Park - London
Sir John Nash





Regent's Park - London
Sir John Nash

John Nash (Lambeth, 18 January 1752 – East Cowes Castle, 13 May 1835) was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.
In 1806 Nash was appointed architect to the Surveyor General of Woods, Forests, Parks, and Chases.
Nash was a dedicated Whig and was a friend of Charles James Fox through whom Nash probably came to the attention of the Prince Regent (later King George IV) and for the rest of his career he would largely work for the Prince.
His first major commissions in 1811 from the Prince was Regent Street and the development of an area then known as Marylebone Park. With the Regent's backing (and major inputs from Repton), Nash created a master plan for the area, put into action from 1818 onwards, which stretched from St James’s northwards and included Regent Street, Regent's Park and its neighbouring streets, terraces and crescents of elegant town houses and villas. Nash did not complete all the detailed designs himself; in some instances, completion was left in the hands of other architects such asJames Pennethorne and the young Decimus Burton. 
Together with Robert Smirke and SirJohn Soane, he became an official architect to the Office of Works in 1813.
Further London commissions for Nash followed, including the remodelling of Buckingham House to create Buckingham Palace (1825–1830), plus the Royal Mews and Marble Arch, originally designed as a triumphal arch to stand at the entrance to Buckingham Palace. The arch was moved when the east wing of the palace designed by Edward Blore was built, at the request of Queen Victoria whose growing family required additional domestic space. Marble Arch became the entrance to Hyde Park and The Great Exhibition.
Nash's career effectively ended with the death of George IV in 1830, and he retired to the Isle of Wight where he died on the 13th May 1835 in his home East Cowes Castle, and is buried at St. James's Church, East Cowes.





Regent's Park - London
Sir John Nash




Regent's Park - London
Sir John Nash


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Sir Robert Smirke




The British Museum
Sir Robert Smirke

Sir Robert Smirke (1780–1867) was an English architect, one of the leaders of Greek Revival architecture his best known building in that style is the British Museum.
In 1820 in his role as architect to the Office of Works Smirke was invited to redesign the Museum, although the complete design dates from 1823, and was for a building surrounding a large central courtyard with a grand south front, given the limited funds the work was divided into phases.
Built of brick the visible facades are cased in Portland stone.
The first part constructed was the east wing the King's Library, started in 1823 this was completed in 1828.
The north section of the west wing the Egyptian Galleries followed 1825-34.
The north wing housing the library and reading rooms was built 1833-38.
The west wing and south front was built 1842-46. The main feature of the south front is the great colonnade of forty-four Greek Ionic columns.
The columns are forty-five feet high and five feet in diameter, the column capitals are loosely based on the temple of Athena Polias at Priene and the column bases are based on the temple of Dionysus at Teos.
At the centre of the colonnade is theoctastyle portico, this is two columns deep, the colonnade continues for three more columns before embracing the two wings to either side. Beyond the facade are two smaller wings, with Doric pilasters, containing houses, the western one houses the Director of the museum.
The major surviving interiors are the entrance hall with the Great Stair to rising to the west, it takes the form of an Imperial staircase, the impressive King's Library built to house 65,000 books, 300 feet long by 41 feet wide, and 31 feet in height, the centre section being slightly wider with its four great Corinthian Granite columns, there are two levels of glazed bookcases surrounding the wall, the upper gallery having a brass handrail, with windows above on the west and east wall.
The only major interior to survive in the north wing is the Arched Room at the west end.
The Egyptian Gallery matches the King's Library but is far plainer in decoration.

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Hancock Museum - Newcastle
John Wardle 1878 


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Sir John Ninian Comper

Sir John Ninian Comper (1864–1960) was a Scottish-born architect.
He was one of the last of the great Gothic Revival architects, noted for his churches and their furnishings.
He is well-known for his stained glass, his use of colour and his subtle integration of Classical and Gothic elements.
Comper was born in Aberdeen, the eldest of five children of Ellen Taylor of Hull and the Reverend John Comper, Rector of St Margaret of Scotland.
He was educated at Glenalmond School in Perthshire and attended a year at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. 
On moving to London, he was articled to Charles Eamer Kempe, and later to George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner.
His fellow-Scot William Bucknall took him into partnership in London in 1888 and Ninian was married to Grace Bucknall in 1890.
Bucknall and Comper remained in partnership until 1905.
His ecclesiastical commissions include a line of windows in the north wall of the nave of Westminster Abbey; at St Peter's Parish Church, Huddersfield baldachino/ciborium, high altar and east window in memory of the dead of the Great War; St Mary's, Wellingborough; St Michael and All Angels, Inverness; the Lady Chapel at Downside Abbey, Somerset; the ciborium and House Chapel extension for the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Oxford (now St Stephen's House, Oxford) and St Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, London; the Lady Chapel at St Matthew's, Westminster.
Comper is noted for re-introducing the 'English altar', an altar surrounded by riddel posts. Comper designed a number of remarkable altar screens (reredos), inspired by medieval originals. Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, has one of the finest examples.
Only one major ecclesiastical work of Comper's is in the United States, the Leslie Lindsey Chapel of Boston's Emmanuel Church (Episcopal). The work is an all-encompassing product of and testimony to Comper's design capability, comprising the entire decorative scheme of the chapel designed by the architectural firm of Allen & Collins.
Comper designed its altar, altar screen, pulpit, lectern, dozens of statues, all its furnishings and appointments, and most notably the stained glass windows.
For all the other work the finest Gothic-revival style craftsmen were engaged, the project under the direction of Campbell, Aldrich and Nulty of Boston.
The chapel memorializes Leslie Lindsey and Stewart Mason, her husband of ten days, who were married at Emmanuel Church and perished when the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915.
From 1912 Ninian and Grace lived in London at The Priory, Beulah Hill, a house designed by Decimus Burton (1800–81), where he entertained friends such as John Betjeman.
He had a studio nearby at Knights Hill, close to the Gothic Cemetery of West Norwood.
After the studio was destroyed in World War II it was relocated to a building in his garden, which had previously been used by his son, Nicholas Comper (1897–1939), to design aircraft.
Comper was knighted by King George VI in 1950.
On 22 December 1960 he died in The Hostel of God (now Trinity Hospice) in Clapham.
After a private cremation his ashes were interred beneath the windows he designed in Westminster Abbey.





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Sir Edwin Lutyens (Ned)
Robert Lutyens





Runnymede Gate House
Edwin Lutyens

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA (29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was a major 20th century British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era.
He designed many English country houses.
He has rightly been referred to as "the greatest British architect", and is known best for having an instrumental role in designing and building a section of the metropolis of Delhi, known as New Delhi, which would later on serve as the seat of the Government of India.
In recognition of his contribution, New Delhi is also known as "Lutyens' Delhi".
In collaboration with Herbert Baker, he was also the main architect of several monuments in New Delhi such as the India Gate; he also designed the Viceroy's House.




The Cenotaph
Edwin Lutyens

Before the end of World War I, Lutyens was appointed one of three principal architects for the Imperial War Graves Commission and was involved with the creation of many monuments to commemorate the dead. Larger cemeteries have a Stone of Remembrance, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
The best known of these monuments are the Cenotaph in Whitehall, Westminster, and the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, Thiepval.
The Cenotaph was originally commissioned by David Lloyd George as a temporary structure to be the centrepiece of the Allied Victory Parade in 1919.
Lloyd George proposed a Catafalque—a low empty platform—but it was Lutyens' idea for the taller monument. The design took less than six hours to complete.

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BMA House - Tavistock Square
Edwin Lutyens

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Sir Aston Webb
Solomon Joseph Solomon





Buckingham Palace
Sir Aston Webb

Sir Aston Webb, RA, FRIBA (Clapham, London, (22 May 1849)[1] - Kensington, London, (21 August 1930) was an English architect, active in the late 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century.
He was President of the Royal Academy from 1919 to 1924.
The son of a water-colour painter (and former pupil of landscape artist David Cox), Edward Webb, Aston Webb was born in London and received his initial architectural training articled in the firm of Banks and Barry from 1866 to 1871, after which he spent a year travelling in Europe and Asia. He returned to London in 1874 to set up his own practice.
From the early 1880s, he joined the Royal Institute of British Architects (1883) and began working in partnership with Ingress Bell (1836–1914).
Their first major commission was a winning design for the Victoria Law Courts in Birmingham (1886), the first of numerous public building schemes the pair designed over the next 23 years.
Towards the end of his career Webb was assisted by his sons, Maurice and Philip. Ralph Knott, who designed London's County Hall, began his work as an apprentice to Webb executing the drawings for his competition entries.
He served as RIBA President (1902–1904) and, having been elected as a full member of the Royal Academy in 1903, served as acting president from 1919 to 1924.
He was knighted in 1904, received the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1905 and was the first recipient of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1907.
In London, Webb's best known works include the Queen Victoria Memorial and The Mall approach to, and the principal façade of,Buckingham Palace, which he re-designed in 1913.
He also designed the Victoria and Albert Museum's main building (designed 1891, opened 1909), the Royal United Services Institute, Whitehall (1893–1895) and – as part of The Mall scheme – Admiralty Arch (1908–1909).

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Selfridge's Department Store
Main Entrance - Oxford Street - London




Selfridge's Clock
Main Entrance - Oxford Street - London

 Selfridge's London store was designed by Daniel Burnham, who also crafted Marshall Field's main store in his home town of Chicago.
The London store was built in phases, the first phase consisting only of the nine-and-a-half bays closest to the Duke Street corner.
A scheme to erect a massive tower above the store was never carried out.
Also involved in the design of the store were American architect Francis Swales, who worked on decorative details, and British architects R. Frank Atkinson and Thomas Smith Tait.
The distinctive polychrome sculpture above the Oxford Street entrance is the work of British sculptor Gilbert Bayes.
Selfridges in London was named world's best department store in 2010.




Selfridge's Department Store
Main Façade - Oxford Street - London


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Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe RA



Guilford Cathedral
Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe RA



Guilford Cathedral
Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe RA

Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe was an English architect (born 12 December 1883 in Ilkley, Yorkshire; died on his 91st birthday on 12 December 1974 in Buxted, East Sussex).
He read Architecture at St John's College, Oxford (BA 1908, MA 1919) and studied Design at the Architectural Association School of Architecture.
His first commission was Kelling Hall in Norfolk (1912). Other works include the Festival Theatre in Cambridge, the Air Forces Memorial overlookingRunnymede, the Oxford Playhouse, St Columba's Church (Pont Street, London SW1) and won the competition to design Guildford Cathedral (1932).
As this entailed the use of new construction techniques involving concrete, his proposal was first tested out by means of commissioning St. Thomas the Apostle in Hanwell, London.
He was the architect chiefly responsible, in the 1950s for the rebuilding of much of Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple which had been heavily damaged in bombing during World War II.
He worked for the Imperial War Graves Commission (1943–1969) as principal architect (UK), then chief architect and artistic advisor; he was knighted for his work with the Commission.
Apparently indexed in the 1901 Census as "Edward B. Muff", an architect in Hampstead, he moved with his parents during the next decade to Red House, Bexleyheath, London which was originally designed for, and owned by, William Morris.
The family name was originally Muff but was changed to Maufe in 1909.
He received a knighthood early in 1954




Royal Airforce Memorial
Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe RA




Royal Airforce Memorial
Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe RA

+  IF I CLIMB UP INTO
    HEAVEN THOU ART THERE:
    IF I GO DOWN TO HELL,
    THOU ART THERE ALSO.
    IF I TAKE THE WINGS OF THE
    MORNING & REMAIN IN THE
    UTTERMOST PART OF THE
    SEA: EVEN THERE ALSO
    SHALL THY HAND LEAD
    ME: AND THY RIGHT
    HAND SHALL HOLD ME +

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Sir Edwards Maufe’s work includes:

Kelling Hall in Norfolk (1912)
St Bedes, Clapham Road, London SW9 (1924) 
Palace of Industry at the British Empire Exhibition, Wembley (1924-5)
Festival Theatre in Cambridge, alterations (1926)
St Saviours, Old Oak Lane, Acton London, (1926)
Tower at St Marys, Liss, Hampshire (1930)
St Thomas the Apostle, Boston Road, Hanwell, London (1934)
The Oxford Playhouse, Oxford (1938)
Southern extension of Heals Department Store in Tottenham Court Road, London (1938)
St John the Evangelist, London Road, Hook, Hampshire (1938)
Bishop Hannington Memorial Church in Hove (1938)
St. Georges Church, Goodrington, Paignton (1939)
All Saints Weston, Chestnut Avenue, Esher, Surrey (1939)
Walworth Methodist Chapel Clubland (1939)
Second World War Naval Memorial extension at Chatham, Kent (1945)
Naval War Memorial Second World War extension, Portsmouth (1945)
The RAF Shelter, Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey (1947)
The Royal Air Forces Memorial, Coopers Hill, Runnymeade, Surrey (1953)
The Extension at the Mercantile Marine Memorial (remembering the men of the Merchant Navy), near the Tower of London, London (1955)
St Columba’s, Pont Street in London SW1 (1955) 
St Mary in the Park, Willingdon near Eastbourne (1956)
The American Bar Association Memorial to the Magna Carta, Runnymeade, Surrey (1957)
St Alpheges, Lower Edmonton, London (1958)
The Chapel at Boys County Grammar School (now Lewes Priory School) Mountfield Road, Lewes (1960)
Cathedral Church of St Peter extension, Bradford (1963)
St Nicholas Church, Saltdean (1964) 




Holy Trinity Church - East End
Hounslow Middlesex
School Chapel - Bulstrode School


Coat of Arms - Bulstrode School



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