Tag: dome

Building Beauty: Christopher Wren in is own words

Sir Christopher Wren casts the longest shadow of all English architects, still reaching into our own times, the 25th of February 2023 marks 300 years since his death. It can sometimes feel like everything built after him is in some way a response to or repudiation of his astonishing legacy of construction. From the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, through a diverse set of city churches, military hospitals and college libraries, and on to his undoubted masterwork, St Paul’s Cathedral, Wren’s architectural career was as varied as the styles in which he worked. His habit of dancing between Palladianism, pure classical revival, ornamented Baroque, and even the Gothic vernacular, has left many students of his architecture desperate for a unifying factor, something that can collect each work into a comprehensible retrospective. Instead of adding to the flutter of articles and essays exploring Wren’s buildings that will mark this anniversary, I’m going to explore the fragmentary and limited texts that Wren left behind which may give us a clearer idea of the great man’s own personal explanation of his career.  

Ideology & Architecture: Urban Design in the Third Reich

Adolf Hitler’s fascination with architecture, both real and imagined, can be seen in many of the paintings he produced during his formative years surrounded by the imperial majesty of Vienna. It therefore comes as no surprise that the urban design of Germany, and specifically Berlin, was a major concern for him after he seized power in 1933 - and if it was a major concern of the Führer then it became a priority for the Nazi Party as a whole. Under the Nazi government and overseen by Hitler's favoured architect, Albert Speer, the Third Reich embarked on an ambitious building scheme, much of which would never be completed. However what emerged was a standardised style of building that was intended, and in some cases succeeded, to impress and enforce the power and ideology of the evil regime on its people. Both spatial presence and architectural design were utilised to communicate the fundamentals of National Socialism to Germans, Europe, and the World.