Christopher Wren

 

In the XVII century London changed radically. The change was caused by the Great fire and Christopher Wren’s activity. Modern London with its famous tourist attractions is the result of this change.

The Great fire of London destroyed the medieval city. The new city with a new architecture appeared on its place. The Great Fire took place in 1666. It began in a royal bakery in Pudding street. There was a strong wind. To save a wooden city, it was necessary to destroy homes near the fire, but the mayor of London did not give such an order.

The flame was storming for 5 days. 60 % of houses were burned down. The medieval centre of London – St Paul’s Gothic Cathedral was destroyed. The stones explode from heat. The majority of people could leave the city. At last Charles II sent the firemen to destroy the houses which were standing on the way of the fire. But in some basements the flame was burning for half a year.

The event had made such an impression that the monument devoted to was called simply “The Monument”. Everyone knows to what. It is a column from a marble more than 60 meters in its height. There is a description of the fire at its bottom. The author of “The Monument” was Christopher Wren.

After a fire the King proposed the inhabitants of London not to return to London. But the Londoners did not wish to leave. The King was afraid of revolts. The city needed to be restored immediately. The King charged the most complicated problem to Christopher Wren. Wren became the chief architect of the burned London. Besides, the King entrusted him to build the new main cathedral of England and of all Protestant world – St Paul’s Cathedral.

To his contemporaries Christopher Wren was known as an outstanding scientist, the mathematician. But he made history of England as the greatest architect of the country.

There is an English tale about a wren. The birds gathered once to choose a king. They decided that it would be a bird that would fly above all. The eagle flied up to the sun above all, but the cunning wren hid at the eagle’s back, and when the eagle was near the sun the wren jumped up and became the king of birds. As for Christopher Wren he wasn’t so ambitious. He didn’t like arguments and was an enormously industrious man. He used to say: “Every wasted hour belongs to devil”. As other geniuses of the English Enlightenment, Wren lived long, 90 years (1632-1723). He was the only builder of the greatest world cathedrals who saw his building completed.

Wren’s father was the priest and he was responsible for the school training of the prince, the future king Charles II. The children of the courtiers should have formed the company for the prince, and Wren was among them. The prince studied not so well, and Christopher Wren – brilliantly. Later on some people told Charles to have copied his control works with Wren and that was the reason of the King’s kind feeling to Wren many years later.

After graduating from Oxford Wren taught and was engaged in science. He was interested in many things. He made the history of English culture as British Leonardo for the variety of his employment.

Newton named Wren the best mathematician of the time. Most of all Wren was interested in geometry. Besides, he invented the first-ever tractor which was moved by a horse, experimented much with explosives, made one of the first-ever experiences on blood transfusion.

At that time there was no architectural school in England. And once Wren, as he was a geometer, received the order to construct a small church in Oxford. The customer liked his work. And Wren got another order – to build the theatre for solemn ceremonies in Oxford, such as granting degrees. Wren had made calculations and built a hall with a ceiling of 20 meters in diameter without intermediate supports. The architects were not able to build similar ceilings then. The architects, Wren’s contemporaries, predicted that this ceiling would fall. It has existed till now.

Since this moment Wren was carried away by architecture. He visited France and studied the best buildings of Paris. Soon the Great fire of London happened. It was necessary to clean the centre of the city as quickly as possible. The burned parts of the buildings didn’t allow starting the reconstruction. The authorities addressed to Wren as to the expert on explosives. And he coped with the problem.

The king appointed him to build up the burned London. Wren started with churches. They were city dominants, organizing the system of streets. 52 churches designed by Wren have remained in London till now. Every church was headed with a belltower and a spike. None of the spikes were alike. But the greatest Wren’s masterpiece was St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren had to build the biggest cathedral of the Protestant world, which was to put in the shade the main cathedral of the Catholic world, St Peter’s in Rome. Wren was building the cathedral for 35 years, and he lived a life long enough to finish it.

The building has 170 meters in its length and 110 in its height. It has become the second-largest Christian cathedral in the world. It was difficult to make this huge construction graceful. But Wren managed to. The most interesting idea was the contrast between the basis and the dome. The dome of 80 meters in height rises from the rectangular basis of 30 meters high.

The baroque style dominated in Europe when the cathedral was under the construction. The cathedral is built in this style. But Wren had given to it some Gothic features. The combination of baroque and gothic styles became the typical feature of the English architecture.

When the cathedral was almost constructed, London authorities paid their attention to the lack of columns in the central space of the temple. The cathedral contained a great number of people. It was spacious and convenient. But the ceiling of the huge size was based on walls, and nothing more. There was no intermediate support. Wren was convinced that columns were not necessary and the ceiling would not fall. He showered his calculations. But he was not believed and was told to prop the ceiling up with columns. Wren did not argue more and fulfilled the requirement. But he designed the columns so that they did not get the ceiling. There was a little gap between the capitals and the ceiling. The columns have stayed till nowadays and they still don’t prop the ceiling. During the World War II the bombs exploded round the cathedral, but the dome has resisted.

The Whisper gallery passes throug the inner space of the dome. Each word spoken in a whisper is heard at the diametrically opposite point of the gallery as the sound reflects back from the walls (the effect wasn’t planned by Wren)

Wren was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, under a plate of a black marble. His son, also Christopher and also an architect, wrote on the stone: “Underneath lies buried Christopher Wren, the builder of this church and city; who lived beyond the age of ninety years, not for himself, but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument, look ________”

St Paul’s Cathedral is a tomb of almost two hundred famous citizens of Great Britain, among them – Wellingtone, Nelson, Fleming.

St Paul’s Cathedral and Wren’s architecture influenced several well- known buildings. For example, Thomas Ulter created the dome of the Capitol in Washington using Wren’s projects. St Isaac’s Cathedral in Petersburg by Monferrant was also influenced by Wren. The main architectural dominant of St Petersburg is the spike of the Peter and Paul Fortress, designed by Tresini. Some historians of art consider it to relate to Wren’s spikes of London churchers.