Sir Christopher Wren, famed
as the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral, was born at East Knoyle, Wiltshire, on
20th October 1632. He was the only surviving son of Dr Christopher
Wren, the local rector who would later become Dean of Windsor, and his wife Mary.
His early life
After education by private
tutors, including his father, he entered Wadham College, Oxford, in June 1650
and graduated with a BA in 1651 and an MA in 1653. Wadham College was known for
its strength in mathematics and natural science, and its warden, John Wilkins,
was one of the circle of scientists who would later found the Royal Society.
Wren was greatly influenced by Wilkins, and the two men worked together on building
an astronomical telescope after Wren had become a fellow of All Souls in 1653.
In 1657 Wren was
appointed to the chair of astronomy at Gresham College in the City of London
and in February 1661 he became Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford
University. Wren was active in many mathematical and scientific projects,
including research in optics and experiments in printmaking, surveying,
navigation and other fields.
Wren played an important
part in the foundation of the Royal Society (he helped to draw up its royal
charter) and his name thus became known to King Charles II.
In 1661, in an unofficial
capacity, he gave advice on the repairs needed to old St Paul’s Cathedral,
which had suffered from decades of neglect. This was his first brush with
architecture, having previously declined a commission to oversee the
refortification of the port of Tangier, based on his acknowledged status as one
of the best geometricians in Europe.
During the early 1660s he
developed an interest in architecture that was to take precedence over
everything else in his life. Using observation, his skills as a mathematician
and physicist, and intuition, he taught himself the fundamentals of
architecture and was soon working on important commissions with considerable
success.
His most important early
commission was for the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, the circular building that
is still used today for university events including degree ceremonies. This
innovative building, which was always intended to be multi-functional, avoided
the use of internal pillars by using traditional roof carpentry methods. The
emphasis on functionality was to be the hallmark of Wren’s architectural style.
Other commissions followed, including several for Oxford and Cambridge college
buildings.
Plague and fire in London
Wren made his only
overseas journey when he spent the period from June 1665 to March 1666 in
Paris, where he met some of Europe’s greatest architects and artists, notably
the French architect Mansart and the Italian sculptor and architect Bernini. This
sojourn meant that not only did he avoid the plague that swept through London
in 1665, but he also returned full of ideas for new buildings. In particular,
he had a vision of how the crowded and insanitary city of London could be
remodelled, were the opportunity to present itself.
As it happened, the fire
that raged from the 2nd to the 5th of September 1666 seemed
to be exactly that opportunity. Within
two weeks, Wren had produced a comprehensive plan for the reconstruction of
London, consisting of broad straight streets radiating from large piazzas, with
a new St Paul’s as its most prominent feature. However, there were many things
wrong with the plan, not least its immense cost and the requirement for life to
get back to normal as soon as possible. It was therefore always a non-starter.
Despite this setback,
Wren was involved in some of the initial planning for re-building, as one of
the surveyors chosen by the King and the City to deal with immediate practical
problems. Wren made important contributions to the legislation that was drawn
up to govern the rebuilding, such as the need for new buildings to be
constructed from brick or stone rather than timber.
Wren’s chance came a few
years later in 1669, when he was appointed by King Charles as Surveyor of the
King’s Works. This gave him the status to push his own ideas forward, but the
task of rebuilding a whole city depended on a large team of people, and Wren’s
personal contribution was therefore limited.
Many important buildings
needed to be rebuilt or restored, including around 50 churches and, of course,
St Paul’s Cathedral. The degree of variation between the church designs was remarkable,
even given the requirement to build churches that suited the Anglican liturgy
and which were largely neo-classical in style. One reason for this is that, as
mentioned above, Wren worked as the manager of a team, and a number of the
designs were those of men such as Robert Hooke and Nicholas Hawksmoor, with
Wren merely giving their designs his approval.
That said, the designs
that were purely by Wren show his delight in experimenting with innovative
shapes and geometries, such as the polygonal St Benet Fink and the complex
incorporation of a Latin cross into a rectangular shape, surmounted by a dome,
at St Stephen Walbrook.
St Paul’s Cathedral
Wren had already planned
to add a dome to the old St Paul’s before it was destroyed by fire, so this was
in his mind from the very start of the plan for the new cathedral. However,
what we see today was not what Wren originally envisaged, given that the “new”
St Paul’s, despite its impressive size, is nothing like as big as Wren’s first
concept, or even his second. The plans went through several phases before a
final design could be agreed upon, and even this was controversial. One of the
abandoned designs takes the form of the “Great Model”, more than six metres
long, that can still be seen today.
The opposition to Wren’s
plans centred mainly on the dome, which many people regarded as being too “Romish”.
Wren exploited every loophole he could to get his own way over the dome, and it
cannot be denied that the end result is not what was agreed in the final
“warrant design” that had received the royal warrant on 14th May
1675.
Wren simply went ahead by
instructing the various workmen to perform their own part of the operation
without knowing the overall plan. Nobody therefore knew what the final result
would look like, and, by the time it was complete in 1711, it was too late for
any objections to be taken on board. Wren’s masterpiece took 36 years to build,
and the design was undeniably all his own work.
Other work
Wren worked on other
commissions during the years when St Paul’s was under construction. One of
these was for a monument on Fish Street Hill to commemorate the Great Fire,
which is the massive column, with an internal staircase, that is simply known
today as “The Monument”.
The library at Trinity
College, Cambridge, was completed in 1695. This is undoubtedly the most
splendid library building in Cambridge and arguably the most elegant of all
Wren’s secular designs.
His later life
Wren’s long life covered
the reigns of several monarchs, and he continued in royal favour after the
death of Charles II in 1685. For William and Mary he rebuilt part of Hampton
Court Palace and also transformed a Jacobean mansion into Kensington Palace.
His last major secular commission, on which he worked alongside Nicholas
Hawksmoor, was the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich. Wren produced his final
design for the building in 1698.
Wren, who was knighted as
Sir Christopher Wren in November 1673, was twice married. His first wife, whom
he married in December 1669, was Faith Coghill, who bore him two sons before
dying of smallpox in 1675. In February 1677 he married Jane Fitzwilliam, who
died in 1680 leaving Wren to care for the two children she bore him.
In his later years Wren
came under increasing criticism, mainly as a result of his architectural style
falling out of general favour, and he was dismissed from his position as Surveyor
of Royal Works in 1718. He died on 25th February 1723 at the age of
90.
Sir Christopher Wren’s
legacy is clearly the many splendid buildings that have survived to the present
day. Unfortunately, many Wren churches were lost during the “second fire of
London” that was the blitz of World War II, but there were also many notable survivors.
His greatest legacy will always be St Paul’s Cathedral, the building which
occupied the most extensive period of his time as an architect and to which he
devoted his best inspiration.
He was buried in the crypt
of St Paul’s and a tablet to his memory was laid in the cathedral floor under
the central point of the dome. The inscription includes the Latin words “Si
monumentum requiris, circumspice”, which translates as “If you seek his
monument, look around you”.
© John Welford
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