Devonshire House - Architecture

Architecture

In typical Palladian fashion, Devonshire House consisted of a corps de logis flanked by service wings. The severity of the design, of three storeys in eleven bays, caused one contemporary critic to liken the mansion to a warehouse, and a modern biographer of Kent to remark its "plain severity". However, the curiously flat exterior exterior concealed Kent's sumptuous interiors; these housed a large part of the Devonshire art collection, considered one of the finest in the United Kingdom, and a renowned library, housed in a room 40 ft long: among its treasures was Claude Lorraine's Liber Veritatis, his record in sketches of a lifetime of painting. In the Duke's sitting-room, a glass case over the chimneypiece contained the best of his collection of engraved gems and Renaissance and Baroque medallions.

Such a prominent commission could hardly fail to be included in Vitruvius Britannicus, volume iv (1767, pls. 19 and 20, illustration).

The plan of Devonshire House defines it as one of the earliest of the great 18th century town houses; at this time the design of a large town house was identical to that of a country house of the same period. Its purpose too was identical, to display wealth and consequently power. Thus a great town house, by its size and design, accentuated its owner's power by its contrast with the monotony of the smaller terraced house surrounding it.

At Devonshire House, Kent's exterior stairs lead up to a piano nobile, where the Entrance Hall was the only room that rose through two storeys. Inconspicuous pairs of staircases are tucked into modest sites at either hand, for the upstairs was strictly private. Enfilades of interconnecting rooms, of which the largest space is devoted to the library, flank central halls, adjusting the traditions of the symmetrical Baroque state apartments, a design which did not lend itself to large gatherings; a few years later such architects as Matthew Brettingham pioneered a more compact design, with a suite of connecting reception rooms circling a central top-lit stair hall - this allowed guest to "circulate", greeted at the head of the stairs, they then flowed in a convenient circuit rather retracing their steps. This design was first exemplified by the now demolished Norfolk House completed in 1756. Therefore, it seems that Devonshire House was old fashioned and unsuited to its intended use almost from the moment of its completion. Thus, from the late 18th century, its interiors were vastly altered.