Nicholas Hawksmoor

Nicholas Hawksmoor (* 1661, † 1736) was an English architect of the baroque. He is regarded by John Vanbrugh as the greatest individualist of this era.

Biography

Nicholas Hawksmoor was born into a peasant family in Nottinghamshire. At 18, he worked as an employee of Sir Christopher Wren, among others the construction of the Greenwich Hospital. After the death of Wren he was taken over in 1690 by John Vanbrugh, with which he built together at Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace on. After Vanbrugh, 1st Duke of Marlborough fell out after the death of John Churchill with his widow Sarah Churchill because of the construction costs, it was Nicholas Hawksmoor, who oversaw the construction of Blenheim Palace. What percentage of Hawksmoor in the work of Wren and Vanbrugh was no longer detectable today.

1702 Hawksmoor made ​​as an architect independently and combined in his works classical elements of baroque ideas of his teacher Vanbrugh and specifications from ancient Rome and the Gothic. His first building was Easton Neston in Northamptonshire. It is a solid rectangular building surrounded by columns.

1711 Hawksmoor was used by the British Parliament as the lead architect for the project of 50 new churches in London, six of these churches he designed himself These were among others at St. Anne's in Limehouse ( 1712-1724 ), St. Mary Woolnoth (1716 - 1727), Christ Church in Spitalfields (1723-1739, his greatest work ) and St. George, Bloomsbury. He also designed the courtyard and the dining room at All Souls College, Oxford and the west towers of Westminster Abbey, both in neo-Gothic style. The Mausoleum at Castle Howard, however, is heavily influenced by the Roman architecture.