Product Description

Everything Sir Christopher Wren undertook, he envisaged on a grander scale -- bigger, better, more enduring than anything that had gone before. A versatile genius who could have pursued a number of brilliant careers with equal virtuosity, he was a mathematical prodigy, an accomplished astronomer, a skillful anatomist, and a founder of the Royal Society. Eventually, he made a career in what he described disparagingly in later life as "Rubbish" -- the architecture, design, and construction of public buildings.

Through the prism of Wren's tumultuous life and brilliant intellect, historian Lisa Jardine unfolds the vibrant, extraordinary emerging new world of late-seventeenth-century science and ideas.

Customer Reviews (5)

Sir Christopher Wren: architect and scientist
Christopher Wren was born in 1632 and died in 1723.He was born when Charles I was king, and died during the reign of George I.

'Visitor, if you require a tomb, look down.If you require a monument, look around you.'This was the tombstone inscription proposed by Sir Christopher's son, and it would have indeed distinguished more carefully the man from his work.

Sir Christopher Wren was one of an immensely talented group of Restoration scientists and architects who flourished in the late 17th century.His architectural achievements include St Paul's Cathedral and many of the significant buildings built (or rebuilt) in London after the Great Fire in 1666.Much of his scientific work was done in collaboration with Robert Hooke and while it is perhaps less visible to non-scientists it is highly significant.

This is not a book so much about Sir Christopher himself as it is about the span and influence of his public life.Those with an interest in Restoration science will recognise Boyle, Newton, Hooke, Flamsteed and Halley amongst others.Those with an interest in the Stuart dynasty will recognise some of the dynastic failings which impacted on the execution of some of Sir Christopher's architectural designs.

This is an ambitious book and one which could have benefitted from more careful editing.The first name of the first Earl of Clarendon (Edward rather than Henry) is likely to be known by most interested in this period and is a relatively minor issue but it jars.

I would recommend this book to those with an interest in 17th century science and architecture in its own political setting.Ms Jardine provides extensive notes and a comprehensive bigraphy for those who want to read either more widely or in more detail.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Well researched but trivial
I admit that I approached this book hoping for more info about his architecture and scientific thinking. And also admittedly, the author straight off the bat says that if you are looking for pure architecture on Wren look at another book, or pure scientific theories of Wren also look at another book. However, I was hoping for a middle ground. The book delves more into the turbulence of the times and how that affected young Wren's monetary standing. Lots of info about minor characters. Lots of overly long and redundant quotes from archaicly written (obviously) source materials that the author has to paraphrase almost word for word after the quote. But very little info about the science or the architecture.

on a grander scale
the author has obviously researched this great man's life thoroughly.unfortunately, she has so much to say it comes tumbling down onto the pages in the form of a poorly edited - if it was edited at all - work. it is impeded by a maddening amount of sentences aborted by " ()"and" -" to the point some sentences are so disjointed it is necessary to re read them to figure out where a sentence was headed before it got short circuited. some additions of this type can be informative, most are not.footnotes could have helped saved what could have been a great work on a great man by a great author. instead, it often reads as a mass of annoying self-interruptions and break up of sentence continuity.

�reader if you require a monument, look around you�
"reader if you require a monument, look around you"(inscription of the plaque at Wren's tomb)

Sir Christopher Wren was born to a life of privilege that evaporated when Charles I was deposed.His father was Order of the Garter.Suddenly his family was in danger of losing life as well as property.These were Wren's student years.During this period Wren became pragmatic, and he survived.

It was the Restoration of Charles II to the throne of England that restored the fortunes of the Wren family.Too late for the father, but at precisely the right moment for the son.Charles II restored the monarchy, and restored the fortunes of Wren.The Restoration was an extraordinary period.

Wren was a Renaissance man, best known for his architecture, in particular St. Paul's Cathedral. But Wren also "mapped moons and the trajectories of comets"He "pursued astronomy and medicine during two civil wars."

This is a scholarly biography, and not light beach reading.Lisa Jardine's 85 pages of notes and an eighteen page bibliography may give some insight into how seriously she has taken her subject. On a Grander Scale is a detailed report on a fascinating time in England's history and one of the men that made it so.It is well done, accurate, and intellectually stimulating.

Absolutely Terrific!
Christopher Wren, didn't he rebuild St. Paul's after the Great Fire.Yes, he did that--and rebuilt all those parish churches too.We all know that.

But, who knew that is father was the Dean of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and, in that capacity hid the records of the Order of the Garter during the Cromwell period?

Who knew that he helped to found the Royal Society (for the advancement of science)?That he was at one time a professor of astronomy.

In an age where half those born did not reach their first birthday, Christopher Wren, lived to be 91 years old.His achievements were monumental (pun intended) but they want far beyond the architecture we know about (which in his old age he referred to as "rubbish").

His was an astounding life.This book is well researched and superbly written.After reading this one, I went out and bought the author's life of Jane Austen (of course from Amazon).

Kudo's to the author and you all go out and buy (and read) this one! ... Read more

Product Description
The Great Fire of 1666 devastated the centre of London, with a loss of old St Paul's and eighty-six parish churches. Sir Christopher Wren, working with Commissioners appointed by Parliament, was responsible for rebuilding the cathedral and fifty-one of the parish churches, although the immediate need to start rebuilding made his design for an overall replanning of the City impossible. The work was funded by a tax on coals brought into the City of London. Much has been written about Wren's rebuilding of St Paul's, while the other fifty-ne parish churches he was appointed to reconstruct are generally overlooked. This is the first modern book to examine them as a whole. Paul Jeffery describes how and when the churches were built, exploring the respective contributions of Wren and of his two principal assistants, Robert Hooke and Nicholas Hawksmoor. The result of their work was a unique set of contemporary churches. While not all are of the standard of Wren's masterpieces, such as St Stephen Walbrook and St Bride's, none is without architectural merit and interest. The second part of the book is a gazetteer of all the churches, including those that no longer exist.The book is heavily illustrated and provides a visual strong record of all the churches. Since they were built, the Wren churches have suffered steady losses. St Christopher-le-Stocks was demolished in 1782 to make way for the Bank of England. Others, such as St Dionis Backchurch and St Antholin Budge Row, were lost to Victorian parish rationalisation. Many were destroyed or badly damaged in the Second World War. Only twenty-three of the original fifty-one remain. These are now under threat again, with the Templeman Report's proposal that only four of the existing churches (none by Wren) should be retained as parish churches. They provide a test case of conservation, sitting as they do in the middle of the City of London. The "City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren" presents a clear case both for their importance and for their preservation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Uneven but extremely useful
St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, St. Bride, Fleet Street and St. Stephen Walbrook (the 'dress rehersal for St. Paul's Cathedral') are familiar to most Londoners; their elaborate spires, now hemmed in by ugly office-blocks, spatter the horizons of tidy panoramas of 18th century London by Canaletto and Samuel Scott.Every one of these - with maybe the exception of St. Martin Ludgate - was gutted during the Second World War, by which time many of their pews, reredos and glass had been ousted in favour of convenient but sytlistically incongruent fittings. St. Dunstan-in-the-East, not exclusive in Wren's oeuvre as an exercise in 'Gothick' architecture (in spirit rather than in form), is now a pretty free-standing tower looming over a formal garden.St. Mary Aldermanbury was rebuilt in Wisconsin, whilst St. Michael Bassishaw, and St. Christopher-le-Stocks (to name but two) survive only as drawings and descriptions.Jeffery's 'City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren' is an affordable, nicely produced survey of the 52 London churches built from 1670 to replace those gutted during the Great Fire in 1666.After several discursive essays on design, attribution, fittings and other aspects of their conception, Jeffrey provides an expansive gazetter of each church.

His objective is - as he states in his introduction - to present a case for the conservation of the 20-odd churches that remain, whilst addressing aspects of authorship and parochial history relevant to the particular buildings.For those who find the twenty volumes of the exhaustive (and undigested) Wren Society journals daunting and (in the case of most copies accessable) rather fragile, Jeffery's parochial histories and surveys of expenses, craftsmen and subsequent renovations to the churches are brief, concise, and specific.The photographs and engravings included (as appropriate) are eloquent and printed to a high standard.Furthermore, plans (some in Jerrery's own hand) of churches of which little information can be milked (St. Olave Jewry, St. Matthew Friday Street and St. Mary Woolnoth before Hawksmoor replaced it, etc.) are included with each entry in the gazetter, and this section is the author's finest; but his excursions in problems of authorship give frequent pause for thought.

The attribution of St. Paul, Benet's Wharf, and St. Edmund the King to Robert Hooke is reasonably well established: the elevation of the recessed ranges of Bethlehem Hospital and the east and west elevations of Ramsbury Manor are sufficiently close in detail to identify Hooke as the probable author.Furthermore, the similarity of St. Martin Ludgate to St. Edmund means that Hooke's oeuvre is more elastic than one might have anticipated.However, the oblique and hazy attribution of the steeple of St. Mary-le-Bow to Hawksmoor is, quite simply, unhistorical: a drawing by Hawksmoor for the church (complete with an unbuilt three-bay brick loggia with stone coigns and pilasters) is not sufficient ground for the attribution that Jeffery implies.Furthermore, the delegation of 'thirds' of the city to respective surveyors (which has some documentary support) contradicts Jeffery's own conclusion that autograph works by Wren are largely concentrated in the north and west of the city.This would account for St. Clement Danes and St. James Picadilly (whose authorship has never been doubted), but the churches grouped far further east (around St. Vedast, Foster Lane, and St. Lawrence Jewry) are similarly attributed to Wren in other studies on what seem sound traditions. Jeffery does not delve into stylistic analysis to a sufficient degree to play with questions of this sort, and the results he presents should be treated with caution.

As a book that pleads for the conservation of these sometimes crude, ugly or obscure but consistently fascinating and diverse churches, The 'City Churches' succeeds. Thomas Archer's vast Westminster church, St. John, Smith Square, is at present a concert hall; similarly, Wren's St. Magnus the Martyr, whose rusting iron cramps are staining the coursed rubble masonry at the east-end, has been relegated the status of an uninteresting, decaying hybrid wedged onto a narrow site.Jefferys study underlines - in its imperfect but worthwhile scholarship - that the City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren, despite mutilation and neglect (All Hallows, Lombard Street, was pulled down, in the face of fairly serious disgust, as recently as 1938), continue to warrant study and are of considerable architectural interest. ... Read more

Product Description
St Paul's Cathedral is known as Sir Christopher Wren's masterwork, combining Renaissance and Baroque elements with a geometric form. It is a celebration of the refinement of the Vitruvian Orders and testimony to Wren's capacity to utilize traditional Gothic and Renaissance building methods within his own re-examination of architectural practice based on empirical reasoning and his mathematical knowledge. The book provides a through analysis of Wren's initial Cathedral schemes to the final built design - the first Protestant Cathedral to be built in Britain. The details both of the exterior and the interior, as well as the Cathedral's constructed dome, have been extensively photographed providing a presentation of this building. Built over a 30-year period following the Great Fire, the Cathedral still dominates the City of London. ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of the seventeenth-century inventor, astronomer, and mathematician principally known for his architectural achievements such as the rebuilding of London's St. Paul's Cathedral. ... Read more

Product Description
Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was an English designer, mathematician and the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford University. It was not until 1663 that Wren tried his hand at architecture, and his first commission was the job of designing Pembroke College Chapel at Cambridge University. Next was the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, based on the classical design of the Roman Theatre of Marcellus. This was the work that made Wren's reputation as an architect. From these beginnings Wren became the greatest architect of his time and is best known for his work in London after the Great Fire of 1666, in particular his iconic work on the restoration of St Paul's Cathedral.This catalogue is a comprehensive survey of the collection of Wren workshop drawings held by All Souls College, Oxford. It comprises 453 illustrations by Wren himself and by Edward Woodroofe, Thomas Laine and most notably by Nicholas Hawksmoor. Several other lesser known members of Wren's atelier are also represented in the archive.From humble parish church to grand plans for palaces and cathedrals, these drawings attest to the scope of Wren's career.He worked on projects for the greatest patrons of the period, redesigning parts of Hampton Court, Whitehall and Windsor. For Oxford and Cambridge Universities he was commissioned to build colleges and additional buildings for those already established. Wren also prepared plans for new work at Westminster School, his alma mater.In addition to expanding our understanding of how Wren's buildings developed from his imagination to finished construction we are offered a unique insight into the way in which the architect ran his studio. Surprisingly many of the drawings were delegated to trusted draughtsmen such as Hawksmoor and Laine. We see the emergence and development of their own talent alongside that of Wren.This is an indispensable resource for students of the career of Sir Christopher Wren, the work of his assistants, and the history of the English Baroque in architecture. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: London, ChapmanPublication date: 1852Subjects: Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Duckworth and co. in 1908 in 520 pages; Subjects: Architects; Architecture / General; Architecture / Individual Architect; Law / General; Law / Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice; Travel / Essays & Travelogues; ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of the architect who helped rebuild London after the fire of 1666 and who redesigned St. Paul's Cathedral. ... Read more

Product Description
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

Product Description
Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Sir Christopher Wren," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Sir Christopher Wren in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Sir Christopher Wren when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Sir Christopher Wren, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more