25/10/07 - Architectural History - Sir Christopher Wren and the English Baroque

In France, the Baroque was associated with the great absolutist kings, while in Italy it reflected the beliefs of Christianity. In France it was empowering (for example, at the palace of Versailles), but in England it was more restrained.

In the 1640s Civil War broke out between the Monarchy and Parliament. In 1660 the Monarchy was restored. And in 1688 the 'Glorious Revolution' occurred, in which the Stuarts were deposed. The Baroque in England coincides with the latter period.

In 1660 England did not have a strong Classical background, except for Inigo Jones. Wren replaced Jones' design of St Paul's Cathedral in London.

St Paul's Cathedral
The theoretical basis of Wren's architecture is based on the philosophy of empiricism. This had a long English tradition stretching back to Francis Bacon in the early seventeenth century: "Nothing exists which is not accessible to the senses." This was very different from the ideals of the Italian Renaissance or Inigo Jones, in which there was no absolute criteria; everything was relative; and there were no absolute rules of architectural beauty.

"...The Corinthian order became the most delicate of all others, and though the column was slenderer, yet bore a greater weight of entablature than the more ancient orders."
[Christopher Wren, Tracts on Architecture, Tract 2]

"Beauty is a Harmony of Objects, begetting Pleasure by the Eye. There are two Causes of Beauty, natural and customary. Natural is from Geometry, consisting in Uniformity (that is equality) and Proportion. Customary Beauty is begotten by the use of our Sense to those Objects which are usually pleasing to us for other Causes, as 'familiarity' or particular inclination breeds a Love of Things not in themselves lovely. Here lies the great Occasion of Errors; here is tried the architect's judgement: but always the true test is natural or geometrical beauty."
[Christopher Wren, Tracts on Architecture, Tract 1]

The Old St Paul's Cathedral was a typical Gothic building, as seen in books of the time. Wren went to Rome in 1655. There he met Bernini and studied the French architects. He came back to England full of ideas for the new St Paul's. His first design included a huge dome, and he sketched a plan of this before the Great Fire of 1666. Within a few weeks of the fire, Wren drew his proposal for rebuilding London. The plan embodies his notions of what a church should be made of: a portico, the main body, and a dome. Wren's first design for St Paul's is lost, but the second was based on the Greek cross form with a central dome reflecting Michelangelo's plan for St Peter's Cathedral. The second is almost a Latin cruciform and it is vast in scale. This design, called the Great Model, was approved by the king, but criticised by the clergy because it was too much like St Peter's, and so was thought to be too Catholic. So Wren went away and designed something that would please everybody. The Warrant Design, made in 1675, is more familiar. It is an old-fashioned classicised gothic building. The design included a spire on top of the dome; an attempt to reconcile the gothic with the classical. It takes a basilica form, with a nave and second storey aisles. But he made another design, known as the Definitive, the same year. This one was a compromise between his second and third proposals. It had two balanced naves on either side of the dome. The dome itself was closely related to St Peter's, and it was gigantic in scale. It takes influence from the Tempietto. The dome would have flattened its supports; it was so heavy.

The building was criticised because it was dishonest and gothic. Nowhere does the building reveal its internal structure; in fact the exterior is very misleading. The first storey wall has been rusticated to make it appear antique. There is a frieze running between the second storey capitals, expressing Wren's originality. Inside, there is a clear division of space, indicated by the arches. The arches of St Paul's crossing are in fact fake. They merely give the impression that the dome is resting on the arches, but it actually rests on a lower arch. The dome is not the same on the outside as inside. There is another interior dome with an oculus which allows light from the outer dome to filter into the central space. On the facade the lower portico is wider than the upper one, which echoes the proportions of aisle and nave on the interior. The dome stands out well against the skyline. It is particularly distinct from the smaller church steeples around it which merely pierce the air rather than dominate it.

The City Churches
Eighty-seven churches were destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. Fifty-one were rebuilt. Wren headed a board of commissioners which was appointed to oversee the rebuilding of the churches. It was the first post-reformation church building programme in England. Wren and his associates had no obvious precedents to draw on. There was no elaborate ceremonial. The Protestant church was thought of as a 'preaching box' and this affected the final designs. Wren changed many of the small churches into centralised plans. Larger churches tended to be based on basilicas with surprisingly little emphasis on the altar.

St Bride on Fleet Street was rebuilt between 1671 and 1678. The new version had a gothic clerestory. Wren drew on his own ideals for new churches when constructing St Bride and his other commissions.

"A moderate voice may be heard 50 feet distance before the preacher, 30 feet on each side and 20 feet before the pulpit ... By what I have said, it may be thought reasonable that the ... Church should be at least 60 feet broad and 90 wide."

St James in Piccadilly (1676-84) has slim columns supporting the aisles. Wren said this of Catholic worship:

"... It is enough they hear the murmur of the mass, and see the elevation of the host, but ours are to be fitted for auditories."

St Lawrence Jewry, 1671-7, had an east end with clear emphasis on the altar which was unusual for Wren. Another unusual characteristic in this church is that Wren used abstracted language on the exterior. He gave the exterior a flat and thin veneer.

At Antholin on Watling Street (1678-82) Wren put a beautiful feature inside and emphasised it.

St Stephen, in Walbrook (1672-87) is a large church and Wren used it to explore the dome cross church juxtaposed with a basilica design. We get the sense of transepts, but this is deceptive. Again, the corner arches are deceptive and look awkward like those in St Paul's Cathedral. Wren did not make much emphasis on the exterior.

Classical language was adapted to gothic needs in some of Wren's churches, including St Mary-le-Bow (1670-7), St Bride's and St Stephen.

Nicholas Hawksmoor
Nicholas was born in 1661. Aged eighteen he entered Christopher Wren's service. In 1682 he designed the Chelsea Hospital. Throughout the 1680s he supervised the rebuilding of the city churches under Wren. In 1689 he designed Hampton Court Palace. In 1691 he became Wren's Amanuensis at St Paul's. In 1699 he began a collaboration with Vanbrugh. In 1707 be began to take commissions on his own account. He died in 1736.

By 1711 London still need more churches. Nicholas Hawksmoor stepped in to design Christ Church in Spitalfields. The church has a triumphal arch entrance design, topped by a medieval rope spire. His interests in architecture were more sculptural and three-dimensional than Wren's, even though he was influenced by Wren when they worked together. He uses Wren's typical deceit, for example, with barrel vaulting continuing through the building although they are not real, only trans-barrel vaults. He used light well, for example, in the gallery of the church. He reconciled the Classical language of the exterior by adding a very medieval spire. Outwardly, the church looks like it follows the basilica plan. The composition of elements on the west front include an open portico, flat classical facade and the medieval broach spire. An arched, vaulted central bay of portico ties in with the window on the east front. This gives the impression of a barrel-vaulted interior which is not the reality, although short sections of the vaulting make up the aisles of the church.

Hawksmoor's use of the Gothic connects but contrasts with Wren. The latter used an empirical approach which led to a certain cross-cultural approach to architecture and therefore Wren was not attracted only to the classical past as a source of information for modern architects. He had an interest in the Gothic, which he linked to Islamic (Saracenic) architecture. Hawksmoor also stressed the roots of Gothic architecture in the east but his focus was on Byzantine, early Christian roots and it was its christianity that was the essential characteristic. This allowed him to disengage Gothic architecture from Roman Catholicism (because its early Christian roots were pre-Roman Catholic) and to connect Gothic and Roman - stressing native English Norman, i.e. Romanesque. This avoidance of Roman Catholicism allowed him to argue that his churches were Christian, English and Protestant. Structurally and stylistically, the roots of this architecture he saw in the Byzantine round arch, not the pointed Gothic arch. In his Gothic work, he noticeably avoids ever using the pointed arch. He managed to combine all religions, past and present, in the spire of St John Horsleydown, built 1727-33.

James Gibbs 1682-1754
Gibbs was born and educated in Aberdeen, a Catholic. In the late 1690s he studied in Holland. In 1703 he entered Scots College in Rome to study for priesthood. He gave this up and entered the studio of Baroque architect Carlo Fontana. He returned to Britain in 1710. He gained patronage from the Earl of Mar, Secretary of State for Scotland. It resulted in his inclusion as one of the architects of the fifty new churches proposed under the 1711 Act. He was suspected of Jacobite sympathies after the 1715 uprising which was led by Mar. He produced the definitive and most influential of all English protestant churches, St Martin in the Fields.

Gibbs had a different approach to both Wren and Hawksmoor. Neither the tasteful classical veneer of Wren, not the more dramatic modelling of Hawksmoor. He was more interested in complex rhythmical patterns on his facades, seen in the side elevation of St Mary-le-Strand (1714-17). He developed this to a high degree in building like the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford.

Thomas Archer c. 1668-1743
Archer was said to be "...the least English and the most Baroque" by Marcus Whiffen. He was a gentleman amateur, who had gone on the Grand Tour twice, in the 1680s and 1690s. There he gained a first hand experience of Roman Baroque architecture. He designed St Philip's Church, Birmingham (1709-15) which is now a cathedral. He was appointed for the 1711 commission and designed two churches, St Paul's Deptford (1730) and St John's Smith Square (1714-28). He took for his designs direct influence from Roman Baroque.