![]() ![]() Inigo Jones (1573 to 1652), one of the country’s first recognised architects, designer of the the Queen’s House at Greenwich, the Covent Garden piazza, and the Banqueting House in Whitehall, had died when Wren was 20. Perhaps too was the fact that the subject was a fairly open field with few rivals. Wren’s wide interests in drawing, model-building, optics and perspective, as well as mathematics meant that architecture may also have been a natural progression for such a polymath. It is unclear why Wren turned to architecture, but it was considered at the time a branch of applied mathematics and a gentleman’s pursuit. The building was intended as a striking secular setting for university ceremonies, as well as for plays and anatomy demonstrations. Wren’s early architectural career The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, Oxfordshire, the second building designed by Christopher Wren, constructed from 1664 and inaugurated in 1669. The Theatre was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Gilbert Sheldon (1598 to 1677), as a gift to Sheldon’s old university, All Souls, where he had been Warden and where Wren had been a student. Wren was elected a Fellow of All Souls at Oxford in 1653, then appointed Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College in the City of London (which led to him becoming a founder member of the Royal Society in 1660 and later its President), followed by election to the Savilian Chair of Astronomy at Oxford in 1661. His international reputation started to grow. The Latin words translate as ‘Take nobody’s word for it.’ The Royal Society was originally known as ‘The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.’ Image via Creative Commons. Still in his 20s, Wren’s breadth of scientific knowledge was extensive. He helped build a 24 metre long instrument for viewing the moon. He studied the problem of calculating longitude at sea, and made observations about the Planet Saturn. He designed a beehive, and a device to measure the moisture content of the air. His multiple inventions included instruments for surveying and another for measuring angles. He drew the human brain, studied anatomy and dissected fish. Over the next few years, he carried out many scientific experiments, including a blood transfusion between 2 dogs. He went up to Wadham College, Oxford University, aged 17. He made a model showing the working of muscles and another of the solar system. The teenage Wren later experimented with sundials and anatomy. He also received private tuition in mathematics and astronomy from an uncle, William Holder, profoundly influencing his life. Wren, aged 9, a child prodigy who excelled at drawing and had an intense curiosity about the world, was sent to Westminster School in London. Statues of Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, founders of Wadham College, Oxford University, designed by architect William Arnold, 1610. The Deanery at Windsor was attacked and Wren’s father forced to move out. Christopher Wren’s uncle, the Bishop of Ely, was imprisoned in the Tower of London. These were tumultuous dangerous times for staunch Royalists, such as the Wren family. (His heir, the future Charles II, was exiled in Continental Europe, before being restored to the throne in 1660). The family’s lives were disrupted by the English Civil War (1642 to 1651), a series of conflicts, fundamentally about power and religion, fought between those loyal to the King (Royalists) and factions loyal to Parliament (Puritans), that led to the execution of the monarch. Wren’s father was Dean of Windsor and the family lived in the court precincts, moving within the intellectual circles of King Charles I. Here Wren, a small frail clever boy, whose childhood playmate was sometimes the Prince of Wales (later Charles II), developed an interest in mathematics. Such images were suppressed in England, but many were produced in Europe. Early life Contemporary print, made in Germany by an unknown artist, of the execution of Charles I outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London, 1649. Here we commemorate Wren’s life and works, 300 years after his death. These include Emmanuel College Cambridge, the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the south front of Hampton Court Palace, the Old Royal Naval College and the Royal Observatory Greenwich, and, after the Great Fire of London (1666), 52 City churches, as well as his architectural masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren designed many extraordinary secular, royal and religious buildings, now all listed, as well as fine landmarks of architecture and place. Portrait bust of Christopher Wren, sculpted by Edward Pierce in 1672. He was considered by many to be the greatest architect of his time. Sir Christopher Wren (1632 to 1723) was a brilliant polymath: an astronomer, mathematician, anatomist, inventor, founder member and President of the Royal Society, and King Charles II’s Surveyor-General of the King’s Works. ![]()
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