Nicholas Hawksmoor

Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661-1736) was a leading English architect. His very original church designs are baroque in their monumentality and sense of mass.

Nicholas Hawksmoor was born in Nottinghamshire, probably at Ragnall. He entered the service of Sir Christopher Wren at the age of 18 and was closely concerned with most of Wren's commissions from 1684 on, especially at Winchester Palace (begun 1683) and Chelsea Hospital (1687-1692). Hawksmoor also played an important part in the building of Wren's City of London churches during the 1680s and St. Paul's Cathedral between 1691 and 1712.

In 1689 Hawksmoor obtained through Wren the post of clerk of works at Kensington Palace and Greenwich Hospital, retaining the latter post until his death. From 1715 he was clerk of works at Whitehall Palace, Westminster Abbey, and St. James's Palace and secretary to the Board of Works. Dismissed from these posts in 1718, in 1726 he was restored as secretary, a post he held for the rest of his life.

As Wren's "supervisor, " "gentleman, " and "scholar, " Hawksmoor made a far greater contribution to his master's achievement than that of mere assistant or draftsman. In particular, he remedied Wren's deficiencies in the handling of the fundamental masses and proportions of a building. This feeling for mass and movement, which Hawksmoor derived from his studies of Roman and medieval architecture, was the basis of the baroque spirit in English architecture.

Hawksmoor was employed by Sir John Vanbrugh at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, from 1699 on and at Blenheim Palace from 1705, taking entire charge of the work there after Vanbrugh's final rupture with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, until its completion in 1725. Their partnership was extremely close and successful: both understood the importance of mass, stability, and the element of movement in the relative advance and recession of the various planes of a building. Of Castle Howard and Blenheim it might truly be said that, while the total dramatic conception in each case was Vanbrugh's, many of the decorative features and details were due to Hawksmoor. The Long Library and Triumphal Arch Gateway at Blenheim were built entirely to his designs; so also was his masterpiece, the great Mausoleum at Castle Howard.

At Easton Neston, Northamptonshire (1702), entirely designed by Hawksmoor, he introduced elements that were of critical importance in the development of the English country house. He is famous chiefly for his London churches, especially St. George's, Bloomsbury (1720-1730); Christchurch, Spitalfields (1723-1729); and St. Alphege, Greenwich (1712-1714).

Hawksmoor was of lowly station in life, dourly reserved and self-effacing, and somewhat embittered by his failure to achieve worldly success. He died in his house at Millbank, Westminster, on March 25, 1736.

Further Reading

The only full-length comprehensive monograph on Hawksmoor is Kerry Downes, Hawksmoor (1959), a well-documented and well-illustrated study of his life and career, incorporating the results of recent researches. A valuable short essay on Hawksmoor's achievement is H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, Nicholas Hawksmoor (1924), which contains excellent photographs, especially of his churches. His relations with Wren and Vanbrugh and his significance in the development of the English baroque movement are considered in Sir John Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830 (1954; rev. ed. 1963). See also Laurence Whistler, Sir John Vanbrugh (1938), and The Imagination of Vanbrugh and His Fellow Artists (1954).

Additional Sources

Colvin, Howard Montagu, Unbuilt Oxford, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.

Downes, Kerry, Hawksmoor, New York: Praeger, 1970, 1969; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980, 1979; London: Thames & Hudson, 1969; London: A. Zwemmer, 1979.

Downes, Kerry, Hawksmoor: an exhibition selected by Kerry Downes, held at Whitechapel Art Gallery, 23 March-1 May 1977, London: The Gallery, 1977.

Kaiser, Wolfgang, Castle Howard: ein englischer Landsitz des fruhen 18. Jahrhunderts: Studien zu Architektur und Landschaftspark, Freiburg im Breisgau: Gaggstatter, 1984.

Saumarez Smith, Charles, The building of Castle Howard, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Hawksmoor, Nicholas (c. 1661-1736). 250 years after his death some late 20th-century critical opinion hails Hawksmoor as the most daringly original architect England has produced, if not the greatest. Hawksmoor, self-schooled in the architecture of the classical world, ultimately, and above all in his seven London churches built during the twelve years 1712-24, revealed a profoundly original control of mass, if not of the play of light, over complementary broken surfaces.

One of the two most imaginative English Baroque architects (the other was Vanbrugh), he worked with Wren, notably on the Chelsea Hospital, St Paul's Cathedral, and the City Churches, all in London. He was Clerk of Works (1689–1715) at Kensington Palace (where he supervised the building of the Orangery (1704–5—probably designed by Wren, with revisions by Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor)), and was Clerk of Works (1698–1735) at Greenwich Hospital, where he played a major role in the design of the east range of Queen Anne's Court and the dormitories in King William's Court. In 1715 he also became Clerk of the Works at Whitehall, Westminster, and St James's, as well as Secretary to the Board of Works, which made him a senior official of the Royal Works. Vanbrugh engaged his services at Castle Howard, Yorks., and Blenheim Palace, Oxon., and it is now clear that the skills Hawksmoor had acquired under Wren enabled the architecturally untrained Vanbrugh's schemes to come to fruition. By 1700 Hawksmoor had evolved his original style, as is evident from Easton Neston, Northants. (c.1695–1702), a large country-house (in the design of which, however, Talman may have played a greater role than recognised hitherto), and over the next decades demonstrated his assured knowledge of the Classical vocabulary as well as its imaginative application. He understood the tensions and possibilities of the juxtaposition of masses of masonry, and exploited the drama and power of modelling, light, and dark in his vigorous designs.

Hawksmoor was appointed one of the two Surveyors (the other was Gibbs) to the Commissioners for Building Fifty New Churches in London under the Act of 1711 and in that capacity he designed six of the most original churches in and near the capital: the body of St Alphege, Greenwich (1712–14), St Anne, Limehouse (1714–30), St George-in-the East, Wapping (1714–29), Christ Church, Spitalfields (1714–29), St Mary Woolnoth, City of London (1716–24), and St George, Bloomsbury (1716–31). St Alphege's is in the form of a temple, with a huge serliana at the east end; St Anne's has a powerful tower with a crowning lantern like a medieval element in Classical clothes; St George-in-the-East has four pepper-pot staircase-towers and a curious top to the western tower formed of altar-like drums; Christ Church, Spitalfields, has a broach spire set above a gigantic serliana porch; St Mary Woolnoth has powerful Baroque modelling; while St George Bloomsbury has an immense Roman temple portico and a tower crowned with a stepped pyramid derived from descriptions of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. From these buildings the interests of Hawksmoor may be deduced. He was bookish (he had a considerable library), steeped in a love of Antiquity, fascinated by English medieval architecture, and intrigued by the possibilities of freely interpreting the great buildings of the past from descriptions. Some of his work is derived from earlier French publications showing images of supposedly Antique buildings, which partially explains the element of fantasy in his designs.

Hawksmoor often introduced powerful emotional contents: at the Mausoleum, Castle Howard (1729–42), for example, the peristyle of his circular Roman-temple form is a Doric Order, but the unfluted columns have only one triglyph over each intercolumniation, giving a brooding solemnity to the architecture, influenced perhaps by Bramante's tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio, Rome. The Clarendon Building, Oxford (1712–65), also employs closely packed unfluted Roman Doric columns as well as inventively oversized keystones and oddly placed guttae. He also designed in the Gothic style, as at All Souls College, Oxford (1716–35), and the western towers at Westminster Abbey, London (designed 1734 and completed by J. James (c.1745)). Some of his inventions, such as the Carrmire Gate, Castle Howard (c.1730), with its steep pyramids, powerful modelling derived from Serlio, and emphatic qualities, combine the primitive, allusions to Antiquity, and a fascination with geometry, anticipating the most robust and stripped language of late-C18 Neo-Classicism. He also designed the Pyramid eyecatcher at Castle Howard (1728), the obelisk in the Market Place, Ripon, Yorks. (1702), and (with James) the Church of St Luke, Old Street, London (1727–33), with its obelisk-spire. In its essentials, Hawksmoor's architecture is primarily a demonstration that in geometry lies the key to all order, all creation. One of his last designs to be realized (with modifications by its builder, Townesend) was the screen-wall and entrance at Queen's College, Oxford (1733–6), on the High Street.

Bibliography

• Country Life, cxcix/34 (25 Aug. 2005), 52–5
• Colvin (1995)
• Colvin (1995)
• Colvin (ed.) (1976)
• Downes (1966, 1980)
• Goodhart-Rendel (1924)
• V. Hart (2002)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• Ruffinière du Prey (2000)
• Summerson (ed.) (1993)
• Jane Turner (1996)

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)

Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 - 25 March 1736) was a British architect born to a humble family in Nottinghamshire.

His career formed the brilliant middle link in Britain's trio of great baroque architects. Hawksmoor was characterised by Howard Colvin as "more assured in his command of the classical vocabulary than the untrained Vanbrugh, more imaginative in his vision than the intellectual Wren." From about 1684 to about 1700 Hawksmoor worked with his teacher, Christopher Wren, on projects including Chelsea Hospital, St. Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court Palace and Greenwich Hospital. Thanks to Wren's influence as Surveyor-General, the modest and diffident Hawksmoor was named Clerk of the Works at Kensington Palace (1689) and Deputy Surveyor of Works at Greenwich (1705). In 1718, when Wren was superseded by the new, amateur Surveyor, William Benson, Hawksmoor was deprived of his double post to provide places for Benson's brother, a bitter blow. "Poor Hawksmoor," wrote Vanbrugh in 1721. "What a Barbarous Age... What wou'd Monsr. Colbert in France have given for such a man?"

He then worked for a time with Sir John Vanbrugh, helping him build Blenheim Palace for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, where he took charge after Vanbrugh's final break with the demanding Duchess of Marlborough, and Castle Howard for Charles Howard, later the 3rd Earl of Carlisle. There is no doubt that Hawksmoor brought to the brilliant amateur the professional grounding he had received from Wren, and in Colvin's words, "enabled Vanbrugh's heroic designs to be translated into actuality."

In 1702, Hawksmoor designed the baroque country house of Easton Neston in Northamptonshire for Sir William Fermor. This is the only country house for which he was the sole architect, though he extensively remodelled Ockham House for the Lord Chief Justice King (now mostly destroyed). Perhaps fortunately, Easton Neston was not completed as he intended, for the symmetrical unexecuted flanking wings and entrance colonnade were very much in the style of John Vanbrugh; whereas the house as it stands is pure innovative Hawksmoor at his finest.

The West Towers, Westminster Abbey

Hawksmoor conceived grand rebuilding schemes for central Oxford, most of which were not realised. The idea was for a round library for the Radcliffe Camera but that commission went to James Gibbs. He did design the Clarendon Building at Oxford; the Codrington Library and new buildings at All Souls College, Oxford; parts of Worcester College, Oxford with Sir George Clarke; the High Street screen at The Queen's College, Oxford and six new churches in London. Although he did not live to see them built, Hawksmoor also designed the West Towers of Westminster Abbey. In addition, he superimposed on the medieval portal, and became Surveyor of the Abbey when Wren died in 1723.

Unlike many of his wealthier contemporaries, Hawksmoor never travelled to Italy on a Grand Tour, where he might have been influenced by the style of architecture there. His ideas seem to derive from engravings, especially monuments of ancient Rome and reconstructions of the Temple of Solomon. But he was versatile in his work, and all the buildings he designed are distinctly different from each other. The influence of Italian Baroque architect Borromini can be detected in some.

Contents 1 Hawksmoor's six London churches 2 Hawksmoor in recent literature 3 Memorials 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

Hawksmoor's six London churches

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nicholas Hawksmoor's six London churches

These churches were built in accordance with a Parliamentary Act of 1711 providing tax money for the building of fifty new London churches, only a dozen of which were actually built, six of them to Hawksmoor's design. He also designed towers for two more, designed by others: St John Horsleydown and St Luke Old Street. The six churches wholly designed by Hawksmoor are his best-known independent works of architecture. They compare in their complexity of interpenetrating internal spaces with contemporaneous work in Italy by Francesco Borromini. Their spires, essentially Gothic outlines executed in innovative and imaginative Classical detail, dominated the London skyline as a counterpoint to St. Paul's dome deep into the 20th century.

• St Alfege's Church, Greenwich
• St George's Church, Bloomsbury
• Christ Church, Spitalfields
• St George in the East, Wapping
• St Mary Woolnoth
• St Anne's Limehouse

Hawksmoor in recent literature

Hawksmoor's architecture has influenced several poets and authors of the twentieth century. His church St Mary Woolnoth is mentioned in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land (1922).

Algernon Stitch lived in a "superb creation by Nicholas Hawksmoor" in London in the novel Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938).

Hawksmoor is the subject of a poem by Iain Sinclair called 'Nicholas Hawksmoor: His Churches' which appeared in Sinclair's collection of poems Lud Heat (1975). Sinclair argued that Hawksmoor's churches formed a pattern consistent with the forms of Theistic Satanism.

This idea was developed by Peter Ackroyd in his novel Hawksmoor (1985). In this, the historical Hawksmoor is refigured as the fictional Devil-worshiper Nicholas Dyer, while the eponymous Hawksmoor is cast as a twentieth-century detective charged with investigating a series of murders perpertrated on Dyer's (Hawksmoor's) churches. The novel is arguably a good example of magic realism.

Both Sinclair and Ackroyd's ideas in turn were further developed by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell in their graphic novel, From Hell, which speculated that Jack the Ripper used Hawksmoor's buildings as part of ritual magic, with his victims as human sacrifice. In the appendix, Moore revealed that he had met and spoke with Sinclair on numerous occasions while developing the core ideas of the book. The authors also brought notoriety to Hawksmoor's famous London churches. The argument includes the idea that, when dotted up on a map, the churches produce an Eye of Horus, and that this has some ritual significance.

In 2002 Hawksmoor was the subject of an award-winning monograph by the architectural historian Vaughan Hart, which redefined Hawksmoor with new insights and discoveries. There is a school named after him called Nicholas Hawksmoor Primary School in Towcester Northamptonshire with over 500 pupils.

Hawksmoor is mentioned in "The History Boys" by Alan Bennett, p82, where Akthar is questioned by Mrs Lintott about his interest in architecture.

Memorials

• There is a school in Towcester, Northamptonshire named Nicholas Hawksmoor Primary School for the architect.

References

• Colvin, Howard, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, 3rd ed.
• Downes, Kerry, Nicholas Hawksmoor
• De la Ruffiniere du Prey, Pierre. Hawksmoor's London Churches: Architecture and Theology. London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
• Vaughan Hart, Nicholas Hawksmoor: Rebuilding Ancient Wonders (2002)

See also

• Category:Nicholas Hawksmoor buildings

External links

• A Timeline of Hawksmoor's life
• Hawksmoor's Bloomsbury church
• Google map showing where Hawksmoor's London chuches are

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)