John Gwynn

John Gwynn RA ( * 1713 in Shrewsbury, † February 28, 1786 ) was an English architect and civil engineer, who is one of the founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts was established in 1768. He argued for a greater control of the urban planning of London, for which he made ​​detailed proposals. His works include the Magdalen Bridge and the covered market in Oxford, as well as various bridges across the River Severn.

Life

Gwynn was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He initially worked as a carpenter, but then decided to work as a largely self-taught architect and urban planner and moved to London, where he was a friend of Samuel Johnson.

In 1749, when Sir Christopher Wren's drawings were sold, Gwynn received Wrens plan for rebuilding the City of London and published it, which he added some of his own comments. Seventeen years later, in 1776, he published London and Westminster Improved, in which he criticized the loose control of the building in the West End by saying, "the finest part of town is left to ignorant and capricious persons" ( " the best city location is ignorant left and capricious persons "), and demanded that the city development should be controlled by a General Plan. He made more than a hundred proposals for improvements to the capital. These included the construction of the London Bridge, the construction of a " St. George 's Bridge " at the site, was built on the finally the Waterloo Bridge, the " King's Square" on the site of the Royal Mews (at the later point of Trafalgar Square ), a royal palace in Hyde Park, a road that corresponded approximately to the route of the later Regent Street by John Nash, and quays along both sides of the River Thames. The Quarterly Review wrote in 1826 that

" No part of his ingenious designs were applied: the publication seems to have generated at the time no public interest, and to Mr. Gwynn has since been thought so little that his designs were later brought back as original plans."

Nevertheless, proposals were similar to his realized finally. In the 20th century John Summerson wrote that " the admirable about this plan its full realism was " his only mistake was the belief that the growth of London in the West at Hyde Park and in the north could be stopped at the Marylebone Road.

Gwynn was a key figure in the introduction of the Building Act 1774 that improved the standards in materials and workmanship - Bedford Square was one of the first areas of London, which benefit from it.

1759, he was unsuccessful from a design competition for the new Blackfriars Bridge. Samuel Johnson campaigned for him by sending three letters in support of the Daily gazeteer, but the plans of Robert Mylne were preferred. He was particularly involved in projects in Oxford, including the Magdalen Bridge ( 1772-90 ), the Workhouse of the city ( 1772-73 ) and the Covered Market (1774 ), and with bridges over the Severn, including the " English Bridge", in his birth town of Shrewsbury (1769 ), and others in Atcham ( 1769-71 ) and Worcester (1781 ).

He was in 1768 one of the founding members of the Royal Academy. Samuel Wale, the first professor of perspective at the Academy, was first his assistant.

An anonymous publication of 1742 entitled The Art of Architecture: A Poem In Imitation of Horace 's Art of Poetry is generally attributed to Gwynn.

Gwynn died 1786 in Shrewsbury.