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2000 Review of Wren's 'Tracts' on Architecture and Other Writings, by Lydia M. Soo David Cast Bryn Mawr College, [email protected]

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Custom Citation Cast, David. Review of Wren's 'Tracts' on Architecture and Other Writings, by Lydia M. Soo. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 59 (2000): 251-252, doi: 10.2307/991600.

This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/hart_pubs/1

For more information, please contact [email protected]. produced new monograph? In this lished first in 1881, have long been used fouryears later under the titleLives of the respect, as in so many others, one fin- by historians: byJohn Summerson in his Professorsof GreshamCollege), which evi- ishes reading Boucher by taking one's still seminal essay of 1936, and by Mar- dently rekindledChristopher's interest hat off to Palladio.That in itself is a garet Whinney, Eduard Sekler, Kerry in the project.For the next few yearshe greattribute to this book. Downes, and most notably and most addedmore notations to the manuscript. -PIERRE DE LA RUFFINIERE DU PREY recently by J. A. Bennett. And the his- In his own volume,John Wardreferred Queen'sUniversity at Kingston,Ontario tory of their writing and printings can be to this intendedpublication as a volume traced in Eileen Harris's distinguished of plates of Wren'sworks, which "will study of English architectural books. ... oblige the publicwith a full account LydiaM. Soo But, as Soo notes in her opening para- of the just debt due to his memoryfor Wren's "Tracts"on Architecture graph, the earlier publications were adorningthe countrywith so manyof its and Other Writings either flawed or are not now easily acces- finest buildings."But nothing came of Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, sible, and it is of great advantage to have this andin 1747 Christopherdied, pass- 1998, xv + 320 pp., 63 illus. $60.00, ISBN 0- them here, in a single volume, accompa- ing on the manuscriptof Parentaliato his 521-57369-6. nied by a scholarly commentary-the son Stephen who then approached texts taken either from the originally JosephAmes, secretary of the Societyof ChristopherWren was an eminently printed source, or, where necessary,from Antiquaries.A subscriptionfor publica- practicalman. Like all his colleaguesin manuscripts retranscribedwith the con- tion was announcedin 1750 and speci- the Royal Society,he knewthe valueof ventions standard in the field. There mensof the bookwere exhibited; but the experience.As John Aubreytells us, he may be some particular historical plea- proposal received a disappointing was willing to show interestin produc- sure to be experienced from using the response,only forty-sixsubscribers sign- ing a machinefor makingsilk stockings; original edition of the Parentalia,even in ing up, most of them Ames'sfriends. and he was capable of designing and the flattened fascsimile of 1965, or the The publicationwas finally rescued by a bringingto completionthe vast expanse Essex House Press edition of 1903 by groupof booksellers,Thomas Osborne, of Saint Paul'sCathedral and the fifty- Ernest Enthoven, with its thick pages RichardDodsley, Samuel Harding, and one churchesscattered throughout the and richly printed script. But Soo's hand- CharlesMarsh, for whom it wasbrought rebuiltcity of .But if this was a some edition is in every way a more out on 15 January1751. This was an life of action,it was also one of research usable and useful book to work with. importantjuncture in architecturalpol- andeven of writing.If, as ThomasSprat The bibliographicalhistory of these itics since at that very moment Wren so aptlyput it, the site for all new knowl- writings is interesting still. It was was being restored to a position of edgewas to be the laboratoryrather than Christopher Wren, Jr., angered perhaps honor,after years of attacksby the Pal- the school, then the experimentsper- by his father's unceremonious dismissal ladians.For example,in his publication formed in these newly free and newly from the Office of Surveyor General in in 1749 of the plan for London,John disciplinedspaces not only had to be 1718 at the age of eighty-three, who Gwynn claimedthat its defeatwas the testedand retested to demonstratetheir began to collect materialsfor the volume reasonwhy the largestand richest city in basis in fact, but had to be discussed, he called Parentalia.The term was first Europe(in his view)was "destitute of all orally and in writing, so as to put in used by the late author Ausonius, regularbeauty." orderthe discreteevents upon which the and then by George Herbert, and made These texts then are arrangedby proceduresof thisnew researchwere set. its first appearance in a dictionary in Soo in five separatesections: Notes on Hence, the experiments;hence also the 1706 (compiled by John Kersey). It is the Antiquitiesof London;Notes and tracts and writings issuing from the clear that Christopher possessed many Reports on Gothic Churches;Letter RoyalSociety and the transformationof of the manuscriptsin Wren's hand, some from Paris; Letter on Building these empiricists into what Thomas in good condition and easy to collate; Churches;Tracts on Architecture.She Blountreferred to in 1656as tractitions. but, as he said in a letter of 1739 to John comes to this taskwith particularinter- And if the role of the writings of the Ward, others were "a first sketch, blotted estsin the relationshipsamong architec- ancientswas to be reconsidered,Aristo- and interlined (as my father's Papers ture, architecturaltheory, and cultural tle aboveall, it wasclear that any further generally are)"and these he had to tran- history,and these serveher verywell in expansion of natural knowledge scribe as well as he could, adding notes the understandingof Wren'swritings. dependedupon this very note takingand and interpolations. By 1728 this task was Each partof the editionis precededby writing for which, paradoxically,he complete but nothing further was done an introduction;each is documented couldbe a model still. until 1737, when Ward asked Christo- with full and helpful notes, maps, and The texts that Wren wrote on pher for more information toward a illustrations.Thus, amongothers we are architecture, the so-called "Tracts,"and book he was writing on the members of presentedwith WilliamDugdale's plate the "Discourseon Architecture"pub- the original Royal Society (this came out of Saint Paul's,Francis Price's plate of

BOOKS 251 1753 on , and two is certainlyinteresting. But I am not sure James Ayres interesting smaller drawings of Wren's if, for all the richness of the account here, Building the Georgian City reconstruction of the Temple of Hali- Soo offers us any way to get closer to New Haven and London:Yale University carnassus(by Nicholas ) and Wren's architecture or to reconcile the Press for the Paul Mellon Center for British his reconstruction of the tomb of Lars two apparentlydiscordant possibilities in Art, 1998, vii + 280 pp., 345 illus. $65.00, Porsenna, "the king of Etruria," taken it that she speaks about. But even if a ISBN 0-300-07548-0. from Pliny (by ). There is more coherent picture of Wren himself much important and interesting material and his place in the traditions of English The world is divided into two sorts of here, and not the least of the virtues of architecture is still beyond our reach, thinkers, wrote Isaiah Berlin, citing the this edition are the two indexes at the there is an immense amount of historical ancient Greek poet Archilochus: foxes end, one on people and institutions, the and cultural material here that anyone who know many things and hedgehogs other on buildings, places, and subjects. interested in the history of English scien- who know one big thing (The Hedgehog This last is especially useful since it tific and architecturalthought at the end and the Fox. An Essayon Tolstoy'sView of allows the reader to trace both in the of the seventeenth century will necessar- History [New York, 1953]). The hedge- texts and the commentaries such vital ily want to use. hogs of the intellectual world relate all but often elusive topics as the authority In the entry he wrote in 1900 for the knowledge to a single, overarching idea of the ancients, matters of beauty, or the Dictionaryof National Biography,Francis that motivates vast experience (Plato, imagination of the architect, and some Cranmer Penrose, himself an architect, Pascal, and Nietzsche are among Berlin's many more specific, like the catenary archaeologist, and astronomer, was pre- examples). The foxes (e.g., Herodotus, curve, the problem of the encroachment paredto say thatWren, if overshadowedby Montaigne, Goethe) have no desire to fit of buildings, the defects and inferiority the genius of as a natural the world into one great pattern. Their of Gothic buildings, and so forth. philosopher, stood far above all his com- centrifugalinterests are "scatteredor dif- At the end, bravelyif necessarily,Soo petitorsas an architect.Perhaps less enthu- fused" and they follow experience where offers us an account of what she calls siastic,when speakingof the city churches, it leads. Wren's methods of designing and sug- Summersonsaid that it seemed as if Wren's James Ayres's study of the building gests connections between the objectives designs never grew, that once stated they history of eighteenth-century of his many scientist colleagues in the were either abruptly altered or wholly displays all the characteristicsof the fox: Royal Society and his own. Here Soo is superseded,and thatif Wren'sstrength was wide-ranging, diverse, and without any prepared to say that Wren's understand- the discipline of the geometer, it was his dominant theme other than to describe ing of the architect's work was in many weakness also. His example was Saint the in all its rich ways analogousto the contemporarycon- Stephen's, , so long praised, detail. Unlike John Summerson's Geor- ception of scientific instruments:tools to where the problem of the space within is gian London (London, 1945) or Dan gather the data necessary for broader not solved by "the pure judgment of intu- Cruickshank and Peter Wyld's London: investigations. Indeed, what Wren did ition," but mechanically. In his ringing The Art of Georgian Building (London, with the , the , the defense of SaintPaul's against the attackof 1975), Ayres is not interested in the perspectograph, and the weather clock MaxwellHutchinson, Robert Venturi con- development of a new classical style or the may well supply us with a model of his cedes that perhapssomething in the design the patterns of urban form. Through intellectual interests. And yet, as Soo also of Saint Paul'sremains unresolved,yet in accumulation of vast amounts of histor- notes, for Wren architecture was always his view this does not makeit any less of an ical detail and visual evidence he has more than function or stability. History architectural masterpiece than, say, described a history of the building few also supplied him with a set of principles, Bernini's colonnade at Saint Peter's, so processes of the past. There are or, as she puts it, at least showed him how completelyintegrated and worked out. And mentions of the good and the great, the architects had worked out these issues in if we follow Venturi'saccount of the great debates over style, the publication of architec- the past. On this basis, Soo can say that manneristtradition of English architecture theory, or the interest in the Wren worked with a twofold program: that stretches from Jones to Lutyens, we tural developments of the Continent. the the first part being for an eternal archi- might borrow what he says and use it for These are all distractions, and tecture, arisingfrom certain fundamental Wren himself.It was a style based as much author's goal "has been to eschew dis- and principles, that would produce a design on naivete as on supreme sophistication, tracting historical particulars ques- useful, visually beautiful, and structurally "and at times from both at once"; so too tions of taste except insofar as some sound; the second, making an architec- Wren, a person-like all his colleagues- details may have resulted from, or been ture that could be an appropriateexpres- supremelysophisticated, yet in visualmat- influenced by, a particular material or sion of English society restoredunder the ters in some measurenaive. method" (1). and Stuarts by using a style that was also -DAVID CAST The Georgian in the broadest grounded in the history of England. This Bryn Mawr College beyond is defined

252 JSAH / 59:2, JUNE 2000