LATROBE.
By 1800
the
Gothic was a fully acceptable alternative to the Greek revival as a
style for major churches. Benjamin Latrobe
(1764-1820), an Anglo-American who under
Jefferson became the most influential architect of "Federal"
Neoclassicism, submitted a design in each style for the Cathedral in
Baltimore. In this he may be called a disciple of the English architect
John Soane (1753-1837), who also worked in a variety of revival styles. The Neoclassic one was
chosen, but it might well have been the Neo-Gothic. The exterior of the
present building (fig. 928)
has walls that resemble Soufflot's Pantheon (see fig.
871), a dome of more
severe design, a temple front, and bell towers of disguised
Gothic-Baroque ancestry. (The bulbous crowns are not his work.)
Far more distinguished is the interior (fig.
929). Although inspired by the domed and vaulted
spaces of ancient Rome, especially the Pantheon (see fig.
250), Latrobe was not interested
in archaeological correctness. The "muscularity" of Roman structures has
been suppressed. The delicate moldings, profiles, and coffers are
derived straight from Robert Adam (compare fig.
874); they are no more than linear accents that
do not disturb the continuous, abstract surfaces. Here Latrobe shows how
much he had learned from Soane's masterpiece, the Bank of England in
London, before his departure from that city in 1796.
Unfortunately, the bank was largely
destroyed in 1927, but it
is still known from photographs (see fig.
931).
Like Adam, Soane was enthused by Piranesi's epic
architectural fantasies, which he joined with the latest French
theories. In Latrobe's Romantic interpretation, the spatial qualities of
ancient architecture have acquired the visionary quality of Boullee's
memorial to Isaac Newton (see fig. 872)—vast,
pure, sublime. The strangely weightless interior presents almost that
combination of classic form and Gothic lightness first postulated by
Soufflot. It also shows the free and imaginative look of the mature
Neoclassic style, when handled by a gifted architect.
Had the Gothic
design (fig. 930)
been
chosen, the exterior might have been more striking, but the interior
probably less impressive. Like most Romantic architects seeking the
sublime, Latrobe viewed Gothic churches "from the outside in"—as
mysterious, looming structures silhouetted against the sky—but
nourished his spatial fantasy on Roman monuments. After
1800, the choice between
classical and Gothic modes was more often resolved in favor of Gothic.
Nationalist sentiments, strengthened in the Napoleonic wars, became
important factors. England, France, and Germany each tended to think that Gothic expressed its particular national genius. Certain
theorists (notably John Ruskin) also regarded Gothic as superior for
ethical or religious reasons on the grounds that it was "honest" and
"Christian."
928. BENJAMIN LATROBE. Baltimore
Cathedral (Basilica of the Assumption), Baltimore, Maryland. Begun
1805
929. Interior, Baltimore Cathedral
930. BENJAMIN LATROBE. Alternative
design for Baltimore Cathedral
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Benjamin Latrobe
Benjamin Latrobe, in full Benjamin Henry Latrobe (born May
1, 1764, Fulneck, near Leeds, Yorkshire, Eng.—died Sept. 3,
1820, New Orleans, La., U.S.), British-born architect and
civil engineer who established architecture as a profession
in the United States. Latrobe was the most original
proponent of the Greek Revival style in American building.
Latrobe attended the
Moravian college at Niesky, Saxony, and traveled in France
and Italy, acquiring a knowledge of advanced French
architecture. After returning to England in 1784, he studied
with the Neoclassical architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell.
Latrobe may also have studied engineering under John Smeaton,
a well-known civil engineer. Having begun his own practice
about 1790, Latrobe designed Hammerwood Lodge, Sussex, which
shows his subsequent combinations of bold geometric forms
with classical details.
Latrobe emigrated in 1795
to the United States, where his first important work was the
State Penitentiary in Richmond, Va. (1797–98; demolished
1927). Latrobe then moved to Philadelphia and in 1798
received the commission for his Bank of Pennsylvania, whose
Ionic porticoes inspired countless imitations; the building
is now considered the first monument of the Greek Revival in
America. It is clear, however, that Latrobe did not feel
himself confined by styles, as his Sedgeley House,
Philadelphia, built about the same time, is thought of as
the first Gothic Revival structure in the United States.
In Richmond, Latrobe had
met Thomas Jefferson, who, in 1803, made him surveyor of the
public buildings of the United States. In this post Latrobe
inherited the task of completing the U.S. Capitol in
Washington, D.C. In the House of Representatives and the
Senate chambers, he incorporated American floral motifs—corn
cobs, tobacco leaves—into the classical scheme. His Supreme
Court Chamber (designed 1806–07) in the Capitol is a notably
original American classical interior.
Latrobe’s most famous work
is the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, the Roman Catholic cathedral of Baltimore (begun
1805), a severe, beautifully proportioned structure slightly
marred by the onion-shaped domes added, after Latrobe’s
death, to the towers above the portico. Also in Baltimore is
his Exchange (1820).
Latrobe was also active as
an engineer, especially in the design of waterworks. His
more inventive schemes, involving engines, steamboats, and
similar projects, brought him to financial ruin. While
supervising his waterworks project for New Orleans, Latrobe
contracted yellow fever and died. Latrobe set high standards
of design and technical competence that were adopted by his
foremost pupils, Robert Mills and William Strickland.
Encyclopædia
Britannica
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BARRY AND
PUGIN.
All these considerations lie behind the design by
Sir Charles Barry (1785-1860)
and
Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852) for
the Houses of Parliament in London, the largest monument of the Gothic
revival (fig. 932). As the
seat of a large and complex governmental apparatus, but at the same time
as a focus of patriotic feeling, it presents a curious mixture:
repetitious symmetry governs the main body of the structure and
picturesque irregularity its silhouette. The building is indeed a
contradiction in terms, for it imposes Pugin's Gothic vocabulary,
inspired by the later English Perpendicular (compare fig.
471), onto the classically
conceived structure by Barry, with results that satisfied neither.
Nevertheless the Houses of Parliament admirably convey the grandeur of
Victorian England at the height of its power.
932. SIR CHARLES BARRY and A.
N. WELBY PUGIN. The Houses of
Parliament, London. Begun 1836
932. SIR CHARLES BARRY and A.
N. WELBY PUGIN. The Houses of
Parliament, London. Begun 1836
932. SIR CHARLES BARRY and A.
N. WELBY PUGIN. The Houses of
Parliament, London. Begun 1836
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Sir Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry, (born May 23, 1795, London, Eng.—died May
12, 1860, London), one of the architects of the Gothic
Revival in England and chief architect of the British Houses
of Parliament.
The son of a stationer,
Barry was articled to a firm of surveyors and architects
until 1817, when he set out on a three-year tour of France,
Greece, Italy, Egypt, Turkey, and Palestine to study
architecture. In 1820 he settled in London. One of his first
works was the Church of Saint Peter at Brighton, which he
began in the 1820s. In 1832 he completed the Travellers’
Club in Pall Mall, the first work in the style of an Italian
Renaissance palace to be built in London. In the same style
and on a grander scale he built (1837–41) the Reform Club.
He was also engaged on numerous private mansions in London,
the finest being Bridgewater House, which was completed in
the 1850s. In Birmingham one of his best works, King
Edward’s School, was built in the Perpendicular Gothic style
between 1833 and 1837. For Manchester he designed the Royal
Institution of Fine Arts (1824–35) and the Athenaeum
(1836–39), and for Halifax the town hall (completed in the
early 1860s).
In 1835 a design
competition was held for a new Houses of Parliament
building, also called Westminster Palace, to replace the one
destroyed by fire in 1834. Barry won the contest in 1836,
and the project occupied him for the rest of his life. With
the help of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Barry designed a
composition ornamented in the Gothic Revival style and
featuring two asymmetrically placed towers. The complex of
the Houses of Parliament (1837–60) is Barry’s masterpiece.
Barry was elected an
associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1840 and a royal
academician in the following year and received many foreign
honours. He was knighted in 1852 and, on his death, was
buried in Westminster Abbey.
His son, Edward Middleton
Barry (1830–80), also a noted architect, completed the work
on the Houses of Parliament.
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A.W.N. Pugin
A.W.N. Pugin, in full Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (born
March 1, 1812, London, Eng.—died Sept. 14, 1852, London),
English architect, designer, author, theorist, and leading
figure in the English Roman Catholic and Gothic revivals.
Pugin was the son of the
architect Augustus Charles Pugin, who gave him his
architectural and draftsmanship training. His mature
professional life began in 1836 when he published Contrasts,
which conveyed the argument with which Pugin was throughout
his life to be identified, the link between the quality and
character of a society with the calibre of its architecture.
Pugin, who became a Roman Catholic in 1835, contended that
decline in the arts was a result of a spiritual decline
occasioned by the Reformation.
Between 1837 and 1840 Pugin
enjoyed a growing architectural practice. His employment by
John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and other Roman Catholic
laymen and clergy resulted in his identification with the
leadership of the Roman Catholic revival. His plans for St.
Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham, and St. George’s Cathedral,
Southwark, suffered from the limited funds available for
their construction, but they nevertheless show his
imaginativeness and brilliance. The Church of St. Oswald,
Old Swan, Liverpool (1839; demolished), was the finest of
his designs of these years and the one that set the pattern
for Gothic revival parish churches in England and abroad.
His True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture
(1841) was used by John Ruskin as a foundation for his
criticism.
Pugin reached the height of
his influence between 1840 and 1844: his theoretical
position on the need for a revival of Gothic was refined and
expressed with a literary skill equal to his powers as an
architectural caricaturist and illustrator; and his circle
of patrons loyally supported him. From these years come
Pugin’s splendid drawings for Balliol College, Oxford
(1843), which convey the excitement and fervour of the
Oxford Movement; the richly brilliant St. Giles, Cheadle,
Staffordshire (1841–46); and extensive repairs and additions
to Alton Towers, Staffordshire.
Pugin’s last major works
are his own house, The Grange, and St. Augustine’s Church,
both at Ramsgate, Kent. The Rolle family chapel at Bicton,
Devon, the decorations of the House of Lords, and the chapel
at St. Edmund’s College, Old Hall Green, Hertfordshire, well
represent the elegant, erudite, yet original Gothic of which
he was capable.
The death of his second
wife in 1844 and the recurrence of an old illness cast a
shadow over Pugin’s last years. His practice declined as
other architects emerged to serve Roman Catholic clients.
During his last years he worked with Sir Charles Barry on
the new Palace of Westminster.
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Houses of Parliament
Houses of Parliament, also called Palace of Westminster, in
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
the seat of the bicameral Parliament, including the House of
Commons and the House of Lords. It is located on the left
bank of the River Thames in the borough of Westminster,
London.
A royal palace was said to
have existed at the site under the Danish king of England
Canute. The building, however, spoken of by William
Fitzstephen as an “incomparable structure,” was built for
Edward the Confessor in the 11th century and enlarged by
William I (the Conqueror). In 1512 the palace suffered
greatly from fire and thereafter ceased to be used as a
royal residence. St. Stephen’s Chapel was used by 1550 for
the meetings of the House of Commons, held previously in the
chapter house of Westminster Abbey; the Lords used another
apartment of the palace. A fire in 1834 destroyed the whole
palace except the historic Westminster Hall, the Jewel
Tower, the cloisters, and the crypt of St. Stephen’s Chapel.
Sir Charles Barry, assisted
by A.W.N. Pugin, designed the present buildings in the
Gothic Revival style. Construction was begun in 1837, the
cornerstone was laid in 1840, and work was finished in 1860.
The Commons Chamber was burned out in one of the numerous
air raids that targeted London during World War II, but it
was restored and reopened in 1950. The House of Lords is an
ornate chamber 97 feet (29.5 metres) in length; the Commons
is 70 feet (21 metres) long. The southwestern Victoria Tower
is 336 feet (102 metres) high. St. Stephen’s Tower, 320 feet
(97.5 metres) in height, contains the famous tower clock Big
Ben. Along with Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret’s Church,
the Houses of Parliament were designated a UNESCO World
Heritage site in 1987.
Encyclopædia
Britannica
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All Saints Church on Church Lane in Whitefield,
Greater Manchester, England.
Manchester Art Gallery's main entrance along Mosley Street
Harewood House, south front as remodelled by Barry
North front, Highclere Castle
St Francis Xavier's Church
Church of Our Lady and St Wilfrid, 1840-41
Church of St Barnabas, 1841-44
St Chad's Roman Catholic Cathedral, 1839-41
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