Inigo Jones - Architecture

Architecture

In September of 1615, Inigo Jones was appointed Surveyor-General of the King’s Works, marking the beginning of Jones’s career in earnest. Fortunately, both James I and Charles I spent lavishly on their buildings, contrasting hugely with the economical court of Elizabeth I. As the King’s Surveyor, Jones built some of his key buildings in London.

In 1616, work began on the Queen's House, Greenwich, for James I’s wife, Anne of Denmark. With the foundations laid and the first storey built, work stopped suddenly when Anne died in 1619. Work resumed in 1629, but this time for Charles I’s Queen, Henrietta Maria. It was finished in 1635 and was the first strictly classical building in England, employing ideas found in the architecture of Palladio and ancient Rome. This is Inigo Jones's earliest surviving work. Then, between 1619 and 1622, the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall was built, a design derived from buildings by Scamozzi and Palladio and with a ceiling painted by Peter Paul Rubens. The Banqueting House was one of several projects where Jones worked with his personal assistant and nephew by marriage John Webb.

The Queen's Chapel, St. James's Palace, was built between 1623 and 1627, for Charles I’s Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria. Parts of the design originate in the Pantheon of ancient Rome and Jones evidently intended the church to evoke the Roman temple.

These buildings show the realisation of a mature architect with a confident grasp of classical principles and an intellectual understanding of how to implement them. At the time, these buildings stood without contemporary parallels in England, France or Italy.

The other project in which Jones was involved was the design of Covent Garden square. He was commissioned by the Earl of Bedford to build a residential square, which he did along the lines of an Italian piazza. The Earl felt obliged to provide a church and he warned Jones that he wanted to economise. He told him to simply erect a "barn" and Jones's oft-quoted response was that his lordship would have "the finest barn in Europe". In the design of St Paul's, Jones faithfully adhered to Vitruvius’s design for a Tuscan temple and it was the first wholly and authentically classical church built in England. The inside of St Paul's, Covent Garden was gutted by fire in 1795, but externally it remains much as Jones designed it and dominates the west side of the piazza.

Another large project Jones undertook was the repair and remodelling of St Paul’s Cathedral. Between the years of 1634 and 1642, Jones wrestled with the dilapidated Gothicism of Old St Paul’s, casing it in classical masonry and totally redesigning the west front. Jones incorporated the giant scrolls from Vignola and della Porta’s Church of the Gesù with a giant Corinthian portico, the largest of its type north of the Alps. Sadly, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Also around this time, circa 1638, Jones devised drawings completely redesigning the Palace of Whitehall, but the execution of these designs was frustrated by Charles I’s financial and political difficulties.

More than 120 buildings have been attributed to Jones but only a very small number of those are certainly his work. In the 1630s, Jones was in high demand and, as Surveyor to the King, his services were only available to a very limited circle of people, so often projects were commissioned to other members of the Works. Stoke Bruerne Park in Northamptonshire was built by Sir Francis Crane, "receiving the assistance of Inigo Jones", between 1629 and 1635. Jones is also thought to have been involved in another country house, this time in Wiltshire. Wilton House was renovated from about 1630 onwards, at times worked on by Jones, then passed on to Isaac de Caus when Jones was too busy with royal clients. He then returned in 1646 with his student, John Webb, to try and complete the project. Many other buildings have been attributed to Inigo Jones, but the majority will be the product of plagiarism and poor imitation. Contemporary equivalent architects included Edward Carter, Sir Balthazar Gerbier and Nicholas Stone.