Sir William Chambers

(b G?teborg, Sweden, 23 Feb 1723; d London, 8 March 1796). English architect and writer, of Scottish descent.

The son of a Scottish merchant trading in Sweden, Chambers was educated in Ripon, Yorkshire, and returned to Sweden at the age of 16 to train as a merchant in that country's East India Company. Between 1740 and 1749 he made three voyages to the East, passing away the tedium of the journeys by studying 'modern languages, mathematics and the fine arts, but chiefly civil architecture'. This background placed Chambers in a unique situation as far as his future career in England was concerned. By inclination he was a continental, and in 1749 he went to Paris, as any Swedish architect would have done, and sought instruction in architecture. He entered Jacques-Fran?ois Blondel's influential Ecole des Arts, a progressive educational body that trained the finest Parisian architects of the first generation of Neo-classicists. Late in 1750 Chambers moved on to Rome, where he set himself up as a privately funded student. There he seems to have maintained contacts with the Acad?mie de France, and for a while he lived in the same house as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who befriended those artists whose work was in the vanguard of Neo-classicism. Nevertheless, Chambers was too astute to ignore the visiting coteries of English travellers and milordi. He made friendships with certain noblemen that were to bear fruit in the years to come, and Robert Adam, who arrived in Rome in 1755, recorded that Chambers was considered 'a Prodigy for Genius, for Sense & good taste'. Even so, Chambers had not yet decided to establish himself in London; indeed in 1754 he considered taking up Frederick the Great's offer to employ him at Sanssouci, Potsdam.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Important British Classical architect. Son of a Scottish merchant, he was born at Göteborg, Sweden, educated in Yorks., and travelled in India and China with the Swedish East India Company (1740–9). In 1749 he enrolled in J.-F. Blondel's École des Arts in Paris and in 1750 he travelled to Italy, where he spent five years and was taught drawing skills by Clérisseau and others, as well as studying Antique and contemporary buildings. During his European sojourns he absorbed many of the ideas that were to lead to Neo-Classicism in the second half of C18.

He set up in practice in London in 1755, and in 1756 became architectural tutor to the Prince of Wales (later King George III (1760–1820) ). In 1757 he was commissioned to lay out the grounds of the Dowager Princess of Wales's house at Kew, and ornamented the gardens with an exotic array of temples and garden-buildings, including the Chinese Pagoda (1761–2). He published Designs of Chinese Buildings… (1757—which was regarded as a source for pictures of Chinese architecture even though by then the fashion for Chinoiserie had almost ended), and Treatise on Civil Architecture (1759) which became an important and standard work dealing with the Orders and their uses, going into further editions in 1768 and 1791 (when it became A Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture, much expanded and amended). By 1760 he was established in his practice and became one of the two architects (the other was Robert Adam) appointed by the Crown in the Office of Works. Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Perspective Views of the Garden Buildings at Kew in Surrey came out in 1763, tactfully dedicated to his Royal patroness; he succeeded Flitcroft as Comptroller of the Works in 1769; and in 1782 was appointed Surveyor-General and Comptroller, in which position he rapidly showed himself to be a first-rate administrator as well as a great official architect.

Chambers's architecture combined English Palladianism and French Neo-Classicism, as can be seen at the Casino, Marino, near Dublin (1758–76), built on a Greek-cross plan, and at his masterpiece, Somerset House, London (1776–96), arguably the grandest official building ever erected in the capital: John Webb's Queen's Gallery, Somerset House (1662), which had an arched rusticated ground-floor and a Giant Order rising through the first and second floors, was quoted in the new building by Chambers. Duddingston House, Midlothian, a country-house by Chambers near Edinburgh (1763–8), is not unlike Campbell's Stourhead, Wilts., but has no rusticated basement and the Corinthian portico sits on a platform only four steps high. Chambers also designed in 1775 the Theatre (built 1777–86) and Chapel (built 1787–c.1800) at Trinity College, Dublin, two of the most distinguished buildings of the College. However, Chambers, it seems, had a blind spot concerning Greek architecture, referring to ‘Attic Deformity’, but he designed Milton Abbey House, Dorset (1771–6), in the Gothic style, and indeed seems to have planned a treatise on Gothic for publication. At Kew Gardens he had no stylistic inhibitions, building an Alhambra, Moorish mosque, and buildings in the Chinese style, as well as more conventional Classical structures: he seems to have intended to provide the Gardens with a sort of encyclopedia of architectural styles. It should be remembered that he was the only architect in England at the time who had ever seen real Chinese buildings. In 1772 he published his Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, which was in reality an attack on the manner of landscape-design promoted by ‘Capability’ Brown, but was misinterpreted as an apology for the Chinese garden as an exemplar, and earned him opprobrium. He may have been responsible for the layout of the model village at Milton Abbas (c.1774–80). His pupils included Gandon, and his influence was important and widespread.

Bibliography

• W. Chambers (1759, 1968, 1969, 1972)
• Colvin (1995)
• J.Harris(1970)
• J.Harris & Snodin (eds.) (1996)
• M. McCarthy (1987)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• D.Watkin (2004)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: English architect (1723-1796)
  Synonyms: Chambers, William Chambers

William Chambers
William Chambers, painted in 1764 by Frances Cotes
Personal information
Name	William Chambers
Nationality	Scottish
Birth date	27 October 1723
Birth place	Gothenburg, Sweden
Work
Buildings	Somerset House Casino at Marino Dunmore Pineapple

Sir William Chambers (27 October 1723 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish architect, born in Gothenburg, Sweden, where his father was a merchant. Between 1740 and 1749 he was employed by the Swedish East India Company making several voyages to China where he studied Chinese architecture and decoration.

Returning to Europe, he studied architecture in Paris (with J. F. Blondel) and spent five years in Italy. Then, in 1755, he travelled to England and established an architectural practice in London. Through a recommendation of the 4th Earl of Bute he was appointed architectural tutor to the Prince of Wales, later George III, and also, with Robert Adam, Architect of the King's Works. He worked for Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales making fanciful garden buildings at Kew, and in 1757 he published a book of Chinese designs which had a significant influence on contemporary taste. He developed his Chinese interests further with his 'Dissertation on Oriental Gardening' (1772), a fanciful elaboration of contemporary English ideas about the naturalistic style of gardening in China.

The central courtyard of Chambers' Somerset House in London. The pavement fountain was installed in the 1990s.

In 1759 his more serious and academic Treatise on Civil Architecture had an influence on builders; it went into several editions and was still being republished in 1826. His influence was transmitted also through a host of younger architects trained as pupils in his office, including Thomas Hardwick Junior (1752-1825) who helped build Somerset House with him and who wrote a biography of Chambers's life.

He was the major rival of Adam in British Neoclassicism. Chambers was more international in outlook (his knighthood being originally a Swedish honour) and was influenced by continental neoclassicism (which he in turn influenced) when designing for British clients. A second visit to Paris in 1774 confirmed the French cast to his sober and conservative refined blend of Neoclassicism and Palladian conventions.

In 1766, Chambers was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Chambers died in London in 1796. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Writings

• Designs of Chinese buildings, furniture, dresses, machines, and utensils : to which is annexed a description of their temples, houses, gardens, &c (London) 1757
• Desseins des edifices, meubles, habits, machines, et ustenciles des Chinois ; Auxquels est ajoutée une descr. de leurs temples, de leurs maisons, de leurs jardins, etc. (London) 1757
• A treatise on civil architecture in which the principles of that art are laid down and illustrated by a great number of plates accurately designed and elegantly engraved by the best hands (London) 1759
• Plans, Elevations, Sections and Perspective Views of the Gardens and Buildings at Kew in Surry (London) 1763
• A dissertation on oriental gardening. (London) 1772

Main works

Door handle from Somerset House, about 1785, designed by Sir William Chambers V&A Museum no. 4013-1855

• Roehampton Villa (largely extant including interior ceilings), now called Parkstead House, for William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough. Also designed two garden temples (one to be re-erected by 2008), similar to those at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.^[1]

• Within Kew Gardens, some of his buildings are lost, those remaining being the ten-storey Pagoda, the Orangery, the Ruined Arch, the Temple of Bellona and the Temple of Aeolus.^[2]

• The Pagoda, in Pagoda Gardens, Blackheath, London is attributed to Chambers. A three-storey house built as a pavilion (c. 1775) for the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, it features a gabled Chinese-style roof with dramatic upturned corners. Caroline of Brunswick lived here after her separation from her husband, the Prince Regent, in 1799.

• Somerset House in London, his most famous building, which absorbed most of his energies over a period of two decades (1776–1796)

• The gilded state coach that is still used at coronations.

• The Dunmore Pineapple, a folly in Dunmore Park near Falkirk, is often attributed to Chambers.

• For James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, he designed Charlemont House and the Casino at Marino, as well as the Chapel and Theatre in Trinity College, Dublin.

• He is also associated with Gothic additions to Milton Abbey in Dorset and the planning of the nearby rural village of Milton Abbas, sometimes considered the first planned settlement in England. This work was carried out in collaboration with landscape gardener Capability Brown in 1780 for Joseph Damer, the Earl of Dorchester, who wanted to relocate the existing village further away from his home at the Abbey.

External links

• William Chambers, A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening (London, 1772)

References

1. ^ Parkstead House
2. ^ Kew Gardens web site

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