Historic Places

In 1903 a thirty year old architect won a competition to design new Law Courts and Council offices for the City of Hull. The design he produced was so overwhelming that, on its completion in 1911, it was felt that it made the existing Town Hall looked too small and he was commissioned to replace it with the new Guildhall. (This is even more extraordinary when we consider that the old Town Hall had been designed by Cuthbert Broderick (1822-1905), architect of, one of the greatest pieces of Victorian monumental Classicism, Leeds Town Hall (1853-8).)  The completed complex is one of the most distinctive pieces of architecture in the city.

Fig. 1 The Guildhall from Lowgate

The architect was Thomas Edwin Cooper (1873-1942). He was born in Scarborough, further up the Yorkshire coast from Hull, and was apprenticed to a local architect after his mother was widowed. Cooper assisted in a number of London firms before setting up his own practice. The details of his work draw on the "classicism as a revived style", current in London at the time, but the robust underlying architectural forms owe something to the continuous classical tradition that existed in the north of England. A. Stuart Gray comments that:

As early as the 1900s Cooper had heralded the style of the reign of King George V - greater correctness with diminished vitality. But ... the power of his personal style compensated for the loss of vigour which characterised the period.

In 1903 Cooper was in partnership with Samuel Bridgeman Russell (1864-1955), but the partnership dissolved in 1912 and he carried on work on the Guildhall alone. In 1923, Cooper was knighted for his services to architecture.

Blackburn is not one of the most glamorous cities in the UK. Although it is mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086), most of the modern townscape is a mixture of, unfortunately unplanned, nineteenth century industry and, unfortunately planned, twentieth century shopping mega-structure. Despite this there is some architecture that, while not necessarily of the first rank, is worth reporting.

The Technical School dates from 1888 and was designed by Smith, Woodhouse & Willoughby. The façade is a riot of terracotta sculpture, involving swags, putti and a menagerie of grotesque creatures. There are numerous vignette scenes representing the applied arts, which were of great importance in Victorian society.  In his guide book Pevsner comments “The style is a kind of free French Renaissance; or what else is it?”. Well, it is certainly confusing: a lesson in how to put so much detail into one building that it becomes impossible to focus on any one thing! The result is certainly jolly, but not a viable model for today’s architects.

The detail repays close exmination.

The City of Petersburg, VA and Battersea, Inc. (a newly formed non-profit foundation) have formally joined forces to preserve Battersea as a public amenity. The house is an important example of Virginia Anglo/Palladianism, erected in 1768 for John Banister, a colonial patriot and kinsman of Thomas Jefferson.

This week sees the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. One of the leading abolitionists, William Wilberforce, has been celebrated in the feature film Amazing Grace. In Hull, the city Wilberforce represented as a Member of Parliament, there will be lectures from the Anglican Archbishops of York and Canterbury and the Wilberforce museum is to be reopened after a £1.6 million refurbishment programme.

The Wilberforce Monument from Queens Gardens

For architects and sculptors it is interesting to reflect on how Wilberforce's contempries chose to celebrate the man. When Wilberforce died in 1833, £1,250 raised by public subscription to erect a permanent memorial in his home town. The foundation stone was laid on 1 August 1834, the same day that "Negro Slavery" was officially abolished in the Empire.

The form and scale of the monument are both remarkable. From a great cube, bearing wreathed inscriptions on four faces and decorated with acroteria and urns, a colossal Greek Doric column rises to over 100 feet (30 meters), where it is topped by a statue of Wilberforce himself. There are many monumental columns around the world, most are in the Roman Doric of Corinthian orders; I can not think of another example in the Greek Doric order. According to the official website, the base is derived from sarcophagi in the Pero-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and the whole monument represents the Christian triumph over death. Nikolaus Pevsner identifies the architect (and presumably sculptor) of the monument as John Clarke of Leeds. Through the telephoto lens the statue looks like a charicature (and is lent no dignity by the lightening conductor emerging from the top of its head!) but this is of course not how the statue is meant to be viewed. From the ground the silhouette of Wilberforce is an easy recognisable element of the city sky line.

London's Central Criminal Court, better known as "The Old Bailey" celebrates its centenary today. The buildings by E.W. Mounteford, in a style derived from Wren, replaced the old Newgate Gaol.

There are some fascinating historic photographs of the building here. 

More information on today's celebrations, including a visit by the Queen, can be found here.

The Market Hall, Bolton, Lancashire (UK).

Bolton Market Hall was built in 1855 to the designs of G.T.Robinson.  The building consisted of a cast iron and glass structure, using the technology of Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, wrapped in Classical brick masonry. Timber shop fronts, inserted in the walls later in the century, have diminished the monumental effect of the south and west elevations; the east facade still displays powerful blind arcading. On the west side, facing Knowsley Street, is a hexastyle Corinthian portico, the central entrances to the south and east have pediments supported on Doric pilasters.

Maister House Front Facade

Maister House is the only National Trust property in Hull. The building’s sober facade hides one of the most fascinating interiors in the city; and a story of wealth, tragedy and high art.

The wealth belonged to the Maister family. The Maisters were one of a number of merchant families who lived on Hull’s High Street and traded with ports around the North Sea and Baltic. The family originated in Kent and were first recorded in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church, Hull, in 1567. During the following two centuries the Maisters enjoyed considerable success; family members held offices including Sheriff, Mayor and MP for Hull. It was during the time of one Henry Maister (1699-1744), who succeeded to the family business in 1716, that the great tragedy occurred.

On the night of 12-13 April 1743 the Maisters’ family home caught fire. Henry Maister escaped the blaze, but his wife, Mary, youngest child and two maidservants did not. According to one account, Mary had initially fled the house with her husband but then returned and attempted to save her baby; it is believed that she became trapped on an upper floor of the burning building when the old wooden staircase collapsed.

The construction of the present Maister House was well underway by the winter of 1744. The new building was provided with stone staircases and iron balustrades - Henry Maister seems to have been determined to prevent the terrible events of the previous year ever recurring. But the new Maister House was much more than an exercise in fireproof construction; it was an expression of the most refined artistic taste of the day.

Henry Maister is known to have consulted Lord Burlington regarding the design of his new house. Richard Boyle (1694-1753), the 3rd Earl of Burlington (an old name for Bridlington) owned estates at Londesborough in East Yorkshire and was the greatest patron of the arts in early eighteenth century England. Burlington loved music and supported England’s early opera houses; the composer George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) lived in the Earl’s London home, Burlington House, for three years. Burlington’s greatest enthusiasm was for architecture: he himself designed Chiswick House, London, and The Assembly Rooms, York, but it was the Bridlington born painter and architect, William Kent (1685-1748), who was able to realise the Earl’s most sophisticated designs. Burlington had met Kent in Vicenza where they studied the work of the renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-81).

The Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio is a small martyrium, dedicated to St. Peter, designed by Donato Bramante in Rome.  The Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, commissioned the building shortly after 1502.  The Tempietto is one of the first successes of High Renaissance architecture. 

Bramante was born in Monte Adrualdo, near Urbino.  Around 1474, Bramante moved to Milan and designed several churches in the new Antique style.  In 1476 the Duke, Ludovico Sforza, commissioned the rebuilding the choir of the church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro (1482-1486).  Space was limited, and Bramante created a theatrical apse in bas-relief, ultimately joining the painter’s tradition of perspective with Roman architectural details.  As with Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel, Renaissance architecture was born in Florence, so at Bramante's Santa Maria presso San Satiro, the Renaissance arrived in Lombardy.  However, in 1499, with his Sforza patron driven from Milan by an invading French army, Bramante made his way to Rome, where he was already known to the powerful Cardinal Riario who would later become Pope Julius II.
 
One of Bramante's earliest commissions has become known as one of the most harmonious buildings of the Renaissance: the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio.  The sanctuary was commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and marks the spot in Rome on the Janiculum where, tradition has it, Saint Peter was crucified (this is probably a false perception as St. Peter was most likely crucified in the Circus of Nero).  The building is almost a piece of sculpture, for it has little architectonic use.  The interior is only large enough to hold 15 people.  Despite its small scale, the design represents a meticulous understanding of the traditional values of a Classical building.  Perfectly proportioned, it is composed of slender Doric columns, a Doric entablature modeled after the ancient Theater of Marcellus, and a dome.