3. Sculptures and architecture

The United Kingdom is famous for its art and science of designing and constructing buildings.

Christopher Wren is one of the most outstanding architects known in Great Britain and all over the world as well.

Christopher Wren (1632-1723) is a famous English architect of the 17th century. He was one of the three or four greatest Englishmen. This eminence is due as much to the amazing sweep of his intellect as to a single aspect of his work, for the creator of the dome of St. Paul’s is fit to rank as an artist with Shakespeare; while Wren’s own greatest contemporary, Sir Isaac Newton, reckoned him among the three best geometers of his day, and for the first thirty of his ninety years he was exclusively a mathematician and astronomer.

Wren was born in 1632, and died in 1723. He came to manhood during the Civil War. Newton was born in 1642, and he and Wren became members of the Royal Society, founded in 1662, and still one of the great scientific societies of the world; both men were its presidents, Wren in 1680-1682, and Newton from 1703 to his death in1727. Before taking up his architectural career he had already been successively Gresham Professor of Astronomy in London and Salivan Professor at Oxford, retaining his post until his architectural practice in London took up so much of his time that he had to resign.

His first building was the Sheldonian Theatre, at Oxford, begun in 1664, and given to the University by Archbishop Sheldon as a suitable hall for the conferring of degrees and similar ceremonies. Since the purpose of the building was for solemn public acts, Wren chose a classical amphitheatre as the basic form, and adapted the plan of the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome. The Theatre of Marcellus had no roof, but an awning of canvas kept off the sun. This was obviously impractical in the English climate, and Wren had therefore to find some way of putting a ceiling over a seventy-foot span, and to do this he turned to a course of lectures given in 1652 by Dr. John Wallis, his colleague. Wallis had discussed the problems of a Geometrical Flat Floor; Wren simply took his system of supports and turned them upside down, hanging a flat ceiling from a system of roof-trusses, and thus securing, to the marvel of his contemporaries, a clear span of seventy feet totally unobstructed by any supports.

To complete the classical allusion, the ceiling was painted to represent the sky with the cords and awning of its prototype. In this, his earliest work, we have already the combination of practical ingenuity and aesthetic feeling expressed in terms derived from classical civilization, which is the hallmark of Wren as an architect.

The turning point in his career came with great suddenness in the years 1665 and 1666, the years of the Great Plague and the Fire of London. Wren went to France in the summer of 1665, and spent eight months in Paris. Probably the most important event of his journey was Wren’s short meeting with Bernini, the greatest architect of the day, who was in Paris to design the new Palace of the Louvre. And it is not impossible that this brief interview convinced Wren that architecture was an occupation fit for genius, and by no means lacking in material rewards. The status of an architect in England was still far below that attained in Italy and France, and it needed a great intellect, such as Wren’s to make possible the whole atmosphere of the eighteenth century when architecture took its place among the professions.

The most outstanding masterpieces of architecture in Great Britain are Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, The Tower of London and so on.

Westminster Abbey is a beautiful church full of history. It was founded in 1050 as a monastery, but later Henry III rebuilt it. In the 18th century the West Towers were added. The present building dates from about 1480. Nearly all the kings and queens of Britain were crowned and buried there. As the scene of coronation of English kings, Westminster Abbey continues a tradition established by William the Conqueror who was crowned on Christmas Day, 1066. When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953, the ritual was essentially the same although the architectural setting had changed.

Beneath the roof of this Gothic building there are also the graves and memorial slabs of statesmen, philosophers, men of letters and other distinguished people. Newton, Darwin, Watt, Chaucer, Dickens< Hardy are buried in the Abbey. There in the Poet’s Corner there are memorials to Shakespeare, Burns, Byron, Thackeray, Scott and Longfellow. Near the West Door of the Abbey the Unknown Warrior lies in a simple grave.

One of the treasures of the Abbey is the ancient Coronation Chair and the Stone of Scone upon which Scottish kings were crowned.

Westminster Abbey is a symbol of English tradition at its best.

Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of Her Majesty the Queen and her family. It was built in the 18th century and rebuilt later by the architect John Nash. Nash began his work in 1825, but the palace was not completed until 1837. The first monarch who took residence there was the Queen Victoria.

Above the State Entrance is the central balcony where the Royal Family appears on occasions of national importance.

The Royal Standard flying over the east front of Buckingham Palace is the sign that the Queen is in the residence. The absence of the Royal Standard over Buckingham Palace means that the Queen is absent from London.

Buckingham Palace is partially open to the public, but the ceremony of the Changing of the Guard in front of it is a great tourist attraction. Royal Horse Guard’s ceremony takes place daily in the forecourt at 11.30 a.m. and lasts half an hour. One group of palace guards in their traditional bearskins gives the palace keys to another group.

St. Paul’s Cathedral is one more architectural masterpiece in London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren – the most famous of all English architects. St. Paul’s Cathedral is the fifth church built on the same site. The earliest cathedral was erected in 604. The Danes burned the second, built in stone in 675-685, in 962, and the third was destroyed by fire in 1087. The Normans rebuilt it in 1180. After its destruction in the Great Fire of London in 1666, it was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. It took him 35 years to plan and build St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was completed in 1710.

The most notable feature of it is the enormous dome. The Whispering Gallery, which fascinates all visitors, is situated beneath the dome. In this Gallery the slightest whisper is audible 100 feet away. In the North Tower of the Cathedral there is a peal of twelve bells, while in the South or Clock Tower there is the largest bell in England, the Great Paul. Inside the cathedral one can see many monuments to generals and admirals. Admiral Nelson is buried here too. When Christopher Wren died he was buried in the cathedral, which his genius and toil had created. On his tomb one can read the Latin inscription “If you seek his monument – look around.”