Famous Architects (H-P)
Go here for Famous Architects A to G Go here for Famous Architects Q to Z
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Hawksmoor
Arne Jacobsen
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Filippo Juvarra
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Inigo Jones
It is vitally important, when considering the place of Inigo Jones within the overall history of English architecture, to recognise how prescient he was in chronological terms. As the renowned architectural historian John Summerson observed, ‘Inigo Jones was … thirty when Elizabeth died. He was only nine years younger than Shakespeare and the very near contemporary of all those lesser poets and dramatists whom we habitually call Elizabethan’
Frustratingly little is known about Jones’s background and early life. It is known that he was born in London in 1573, to a relatively humble mercantile background (his father was a cloth worker). By whatever means, he seems to have made early progress up the social scale: by 1603 he is mentioned as having received payment for his professional services as a ‘picture maker’ (stage-set designer) from the earl of Rutland. He also travelled in Europe at about this time (presumably as part of the earl’s entourage). It is also known that he came to early prominence as a stage designer for the numerous lavish court ‘masques’ which were such a feature of Jacobean society (he appears to have collaborated with Ben Jonson, and it has been claimed that his stage designs may have influenced some of Shakespeare’s dramatic imagery).
This background appears to have had two marked and significant effects on Jones’s professional abilities: first, he was able to experience Italian architecture (both classical and Renaissance) at first hand – this at a time when most Englishmen could only learn about such architecture by means of (often inaccurate) imported engravings and prints. Second, as a stage designer, Jones learnt to draw.
Summerson emphasises the importance of this latter point from the perspective of Jones’s later practice as an architect:
Jones’s very considerable capacity as a draughtsman at once marks him off from all his English contemporaries … It is not simply the ability to draw which is significant, but the state of mind, the sense of control of which that ability is the outward sign. It represents, indeed, a revolution in architectural vision, and when we meet with Inigo Jones’s earliest surviving sketches … we know that we have finally crossed the threshold from the medieval to the modern.
A tantalising glimpse into Jones’s practical technique of study whilst on his European travels is to be found in a surviving copy of Palladio’s Quattro Libri, which Jones took with him on his travels, and which is preserved at Worcester College, Oxford. This volume is filled with copious notes in Jones’s own hand, which seem to indicate that his technique was to take his copy of Palladio to the actual classical remains which Palladio analysed – and there to make meticulous comparisons between text and building, so as to gain an even greater insight into the methods and styles of the classical builders themselves. As Summerson points out, ‘It is more than doubtful if any Englishman had attempted this method of study before, or paid any really close attention to antique buildings or antique sculpture’ (Summerson, p. 114)
See Also: The dawning of Whiggish philosophy and Architecture
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William Kent
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Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind is a contemporary architect whose theoretical output has thus far outstripped his actual production of finished projects. An overview of his work can be seen on the Great Buildings Online website and a flavour of his theoretical musings can be gained from his personal web pages. This same website also gives simulated views of his most famous (potential) commission to date – that of the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre in New York.
The essence of Libeskind’s style and technique can perhaps be best glimpsed from the photos of the ‘restaurant park folly’ which was erected in London in 2001: Food Theater Cafe.
As can be seen from these images, the basis of Libeskind’s technique – shorn of the theoretical rhetoric which fills much of his website – is to utilise computer-aided design to create structures of such mathematical and engineering complexity that, as Sutton observes, they exist in ‘apparent defiance of structural logic’ (p. 371). As such, Libeskind’s work can be seen as very much akin to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry (1988), and shown on p. 371 of Sutton.
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Adolf Loos
(1870-1933) Was famous for his declaration that "Ornament is crime" See Modern. Developed and interest in the works of Shinkel and Vitruvius. He was impressed with the functional economy and efficiency of US manufacturing buildings. His Ornament is crime argument was not so much against ornament for its own sake but the waste of human resources and materials that went in to building given that the workers were not being a fair price for their labor. His building remained 'dumb' on the outside and lavish on the inside believing that the vocabulary of architecture lies in the materials being used and should not be disguised. See also Mise Van der Rohe and Le Corbusier
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Carlo Maderno
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Mendelsohn
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- De La Warr Pavillion
- Einstein Tower
Michelangelo
In previous Renaissance period everything was in harmony but for Michelangelo the harmony had to be subordinate to powerful rhythms that gave his buildings immense energy.Not for him one pilaster per story. His pilaster would be two stories.
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John Nash
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Renzo Piano
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Giacomo della Porta
c 1533-1602.
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Pugin
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1 March 1812 – 14 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, and theorist of design, now best remembered for his work in the Gothic Revival styles. Pugin’s most famous work was undoubtedly his collaboration with Charles Barry on the commission to design the new Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament), built between 1836 and 1868.
