Suburban Models, or Calvinism and Continuity in London’s Seventeenth-Century Church Architecture

Abstract

The history of church architecture in seventeenth-century London lacks threads of continuity. It is dominated by two great men, Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, whose contributions could not and did not straddle the whole metropolis or the whole of the century. Besides, the devising of a new church was too significant an act to be left entirely to those capable of architectural design. There is a related misconception that churches were seldom built in London between the Reformation and the Great Fire of 1666. Yet even within the City of London, numerous parish churches were rebuilt during this period, while Jones substantially remodelled Old St Paul’s Cathedral. Beyond the City, much more was happening. London’s earliest seventeenth-century suburban churches were broadly Gothic in style and medieval in type, while those built at the end of the century were entirely classical auditories. The same could be said of church building in a national context, although not without hefty qualification. What is fascinating, important, and insufficiently studied, is the nature of this transition and its wider historical meanings.

Designing the suburban church: the mid twentieth-century Roman Catholic churches of Reynolds & Scott

“…78 And while the vernacular is usually associated with the house, Guillery and others have shown that church design can be considered vernacular in these and other senses. 79 Many elements of Reynolds & Scott's churches were supplied by others without the architects' input, so that there is also a more literal vernacular element. Flooring and marble designs were not drawn by the architects, but decided by their craftsmen, no doubt in dialogue with the priest.…”

Metaphors in Action: Early Modern Church Buildings as Spaces of Knowledge

“…Calvinists alike made deliberate primitivist statements in the use of the Tuscan order in the Broadway Westminster (1635-1642) and Poplar (1642-1654) chapels. 55 It was however only after the Restoration that the Early Basilica was consequently and consciously adopted as a model and referent for designing contemporary church buildings. 56 The most prominent example of an interaction between church history and church architecture is the Commission established for the Building of Fifty New Churches, 57 The Commission's first decision was to supply fifty new buildings.…”