Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/627

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ENGLISH RENAISSANCE. 569 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 (page 503). 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 fa9ade 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 (page 576). York Water Gate, London (a.d. 1626) (No. 252), 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 (1630-1634) ; the King's (Queen's) House, Greenwich (1639) (No. 238 a) ; Wilton House, Wilts (additions) (1640-1648) ; Coleshill, Berks (1650) ; and Chevening House, Kent (No. 131 H, j), are examples of his country houses; and Lincoln's Inn Chapel (1617-1623); Houses in Lincoln's Inn Fields and Great Queen's Street (1620) ; the Barber Surgeons' Hall (1636- 1 637) ; and Ashburnham House, Westminster (1640), are examples of his town buildings. SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN (1632-1723) 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 forms 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