British Interiors - Architects - Inigo Jones (1573 - 1652)

Inigo Jones was an unlikely candidate to have become the foremost architect of his generation, an architect so far in advance of his contemporaries that it was not until the 18th-century that the style he had espoused and developed found popularity, championed by Lord Burlington and other exponents of the Palladian movement.

Born into relative obscurity in Smithfield, London, in June 1573, the son of a clothmaker, little is known of his early years. There is a suggestion (attributed to Christopher Wren) that Jones was apprenticed to a joiner in St Paul's Churchyard but no evidence has been found to substantiate this claim.

It seems that Jones was largely self-taught and without connections and yet he managed in 1613 to be appointed surveyor to the heir to the throne, the young Prince Henry (who unfortunately died before anything of worth was produced) subsequently rising further to become Surveyor-General of the King's Works in 1615, under the auspices of James I.

The Grand Tour

Prior to his first royal appointment, Inigo Jones is known to have travelled throughout Italy, courtesy of the Earl of Arundel and perhaps, also, the Earl of Rutland, who is believed to have funded an earlier visit.

The years spent in Italy had a profound influence on Jones' work. Alongside the privilege of having direct experience of Italy's classical heritage, Jones found he particularly admired the style of the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, whose influential tome "Four Books on Architecture" he would later translate.

Palladio's work was characterised by a desire to reinstate classical elegance and proportion into contemporary architecture, with a particular emphasis on purity of form and geometrical accuracy.

Other influences are evident; Jones was known to esteem the Roman writer Vitruvius (believed to be responsible for building the aqueducts) who, in his celebrated work "On Architecture" states that "Great building hath three conditions: firmness, commodity and delight" (taken from the Henry Wotton translation of 1624), but the influence of Palladio was the most salient.

Jones introduced this radical style into Britain with all the ardour of true disciple. Detaching himself abruptly and entirely from the vernacular style of his predecessors, he caused a sensation with his first royal commission, the Queen's House in Greenwich.

Queen's House, Greenwich

Despite taking 15 years to complete- after being begun for one queen (Queen Anne of Denmark) and finished for another (Henrietta-Maria) the design (based on an Italian palazzo) was perceived to be highly original in its context, and even slightly controversial when it was unveiled in 1635. With a well-proportioned façade featuring a rusticated ground storey and central loggia with an Ionic colonnade, flanked by plain wings and arranged internally around a large galleried saloon, this building became the prototype for many later schemes.

The Queen's house now forms part of the National Maritime Museum, but it is unusual in that it is still standing unlike much of Jones' work. His first ever commission, The Royal Exchange (then on the strand), funded by Robert Cecil was destroyed during the 18th Century, many others had succumbed before that, several perhaps to the Great Fire of 1666 (including the old St Paul's on which Jones did some significant restoration and remodelling).

Banqueting House

Of those that remain the Banqueting House has enjoyed a colourful history, including a lucky escape from a fire which engulfed the rest of the Palace of Whitehall (then the largest palace complex in Europe) in 1691. This was faintly ironic considering it was built to replace an earlier Jacobean banqueting hall that had suffered the same fate in 1619. Poignantly, it was in front of the Banqueting Hall, commissioned by James I, that his son Charles I would later be executed thus beginning England's brief stint as a republic. The building itself was suitably radical in design, given some of the events it was to witness. Begun after the Queen's House in 1619, it was finished in 1622, not being subject to the same biographical complications and delays.

The design was quite unprecedented; nothing like it had been seen in England before. Based on a Roman basilica it comprises a number of classical elements. The façade is divided into 3 distinct tiers; a rusticated basement section, a row of Ionic columns interspersed with pedimented windows, and a row of Corinthian columns linked by decorative foliate swagging, all crowned by pronounced cornicing and a balustraded flat roof. The internal design was based around a simple cube-shaped room with an upper gallery (the ceiling of which boasts some panel paintings by Rubens). The austerely classical approach seen in Jones' Banqueting Hall affected a dramatic departure from the freer, looser Flemish ornamental style that had been prevalent for so long.

Queen's Chapel, Marlborough House

Whilst the precepts behind Jones' work were fairly rigid, he nonetheless enjoyed variety in the sort of commissions he received. His major ecclesiastical work, Queen's Chapel, still stands, not as part of St James Palace for which it was intended, but in the grounds of Marlborough House (as a result it is sometimes referred to as the Marlborough House Chapel). Built for Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I this chapel was distinguished by being both the first classical church in England (1623-7) and the first post-Reformation church to be intended for Catholic worship.

Piazza, Covent Garden

The Duke of Bedford commissioned Jones to create an Italianesque piazza in London, on what was then agricultural land, the result was Covent Garden. One of the first concerted attempts at town planning in the capital, the scheme also incorporated a modest, classically-styled church, St Paul's (1631-5), which the Duke felt obliged to provide out of a sense of social responsibility. Eager not to spend too much money Bedford instructed Jones to erect him "a barn" to which Jones replied he would have the "handsomest barn in England." This story is more than merely anecdotal, it illustrates that dignity and elegance of Jones designs were not dependent on expensive materials.

The church featured a Tuscan portico and a simple pediment and although the original burnt down in 1795 it was recreated in a very similar fashion by Thomas Hardwick. The actual piazza has been remodelled several times to meet the changing needs of the city and, whilst it does still provide some relief from the bustle of nearby streets, it is hard for us to imagine the impact it would have had on the first Londoners to enter it, accustomed as they were to the organic tangle of alleyways and narrow courtyards that they typically travelled through. As with so much of Inigo Jones' contribution to the architectural landscape, the Covent Garden piazza marked a turning point in urban design.

Life's Work

Jones's oeuvre included many other fine creations including numerous country mansions (often assisted by his assistant John Webb and the celebrated Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1640. His influence can be seen in building interiors as much as in their outward presence, classical elements featuring in room layout, architectural moulding and fireplace design. He is also credited with the introduction of the proscenium arch to English theatres, transforming both public and domestic arenas.

In fact, Jones began his working life designing scenery and costume for court masques (frequently in alliance with Ben Jonson until their famous rift in 1631), it is strange then that many of his buildings were to become the backdrop for so much real drama and tragedy.

His career ended abruptly in 1642 following the outbreak of civil war, where the parliamentarians seized all the king's houses. His association with the Stuart family placed him in a precarious position. Rescued from the siege of Basing House in 1645, he was fined several times, had all his property sequestered, whereupon he took up residence in Somerset House on the Strand (part of which he had designed) remaining there even after his property was returned to him in 1646. Here he died in 1652, 8 years before the monarchy would be restored, 14 years before the Great Fire would destroy much of London as he knew it, and almost a century before the full extent of his genius would be recognised, earning him the soubriquet "the first English architect".