James Gibbs
James Gibbs was a Scottish architect. Born in Aberdeen, he trained as an architect in Rome, and practised mainly in England. He is an important figure whose work spanned the transition between English Baroque architecture and Georgian architecture heavily influenced by Andrea Palladio. Among his most important works are St Martin-in-the-Fields, the cylindrical, domed Radcliffe Camera at Oxford University, and the Senate House at Cambridge University.
Gibbs very privately was a Roman Catholic and a Tory. Because of this and his age, he had a somewhat removed relation to the Palladian movement which came to dominate English architecture during his career. The Palladians were largely Whigs, led by Lord Burlington and Colen Campbell, a fellow Scot who developed a rivalry with Gibbs. Gibbs' professional Italian training under the Baroque master Carlo Fontana also set him uniquely apart from the Palladian school. However, despite being unfashionable, he gained a number of Tory patrons and clients, and became hugely influential through his published works, which became popular as pattern books for architecture. The naming of the Gibbs surround for doors and windows, which he certainly did not invent, testifies to this influence.
His architectural style did incorporate Palladian elements, as well as forms from Italian Baroque and Inigo Jones, but was most strongly influenced by the work of Sir Christopher Wren, who was an early supporter of Gibbs. Overall, Gibbs was an individual who formed his own style independently of current fashions. Architectural historian John Summerson describes his work as the fulfilment of Wren's architectural ideas, which were not fully developed in his own buildings. Despite the influence of his books, Gibbs, as a stylistic outsider, had little effect on the later direction of British architecture, which saw the rise of Neoclassicism shortly after his death.
Biography
Background and education
James Gibbs was born on 23 December 1682 in Fittysmire, Aberdeen, Scotland, a younger son of Patrick Gibbs, merchant, and his second wife Ann. The family was Roman Catholic; there was a half-brother, William, from Patrick's first marriage to Isabel. Gibbs was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College. After the death of his parents he went in 1700 to stay with relatives in Holland. He later travelled through Europe, visiting Flanders, France, Switzerland and Germany. Some time afterwards he left for Rome, travelling via France. On 12 October 1703 he registered as a student at the Scots College. He would have been studying for the Catholic priesthood but had second thoughts. By the end of 1704 he was studying architecture under Carlo Fontana; he was also taught by Pietro Francesco Garroli, professor of perspective at the Accademia di San Luca. While in Rome Gibbs met John Perceval, 1st Earl of Egmont, who attempted to persuade him to move to Ireland. He moved to London in November 1708; his return was probably due to the terminal illness of his half-brother William, who died before James reached Britain.Career
Still intending to take up the offer of work in Ireland, he had been befriended by John Erskine, Earl of Mar, while abroad. The Earl persuaded Gibbs to remain in London, offering him his first commission, alterations to his house in Whitehall. Around this time he met Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, who would be a powerful patron and friend and James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. Gibbs was one of the sixty founder members of Godfrey Kneller's Academy of Painting, founded in 1711. In August 1713 Gibbs discovered that William Dickinson was resigning as architect from the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches; the commissioners included Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and Thomas Archer. With the backing of, amongst others, the Earl of Mar and Sir Christopher Wren, Gibbs was appointed architect to the commission on 18 November 1713, where he would have worked with Nicholas Hawksmoor, his fellow architect to the commission. But a combination of events would ensure Gibbs was deprived of his place as architect to the commission by December 1715: Queen Anne had died and a Whig government had replaced the Tories; and the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715 that was supported by the Earl of Mar were all factors. Still he was able to complete one church, St Mary le Strand, that he described as "the first publick building I was employed in after my arrival from Italy; which being situated in a very publick place, the Commissioners... spar'd no cost to beautify". On 18 December 1716 Gibbs joined the "Vandykes clubb", also called the Club of St Luke for "Virtuosi in London". Fellow architects who were members included William Kent and William Talman; other notable members with whom Gibbs would later work included the garden designer Charles Bridgeman and the sculptor John Michael Rysbrack, who sculpted many of the memorials Gibbs designed. In March 1721 Charles Bridgeman, James Thornhill, John Wootton and Gibbs were all travelling together from London to Wimpole Hall where they were all working for Edward Harley, the Earl of Oxford; Thornhill recalled that they drank Harley's "healths over and over, as well in our civil as bacchanalian hours" and talked "of building, pictures and may be towards the close of politics or religion".File:Iglesia_de_San_Martín_en_los_Campos,_Londres,_Inglaterra,_2014-08-11,_DD_164_.jpg|left|thumb|St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, is the prototype of many New England churches.
In 1720 Gibbs was invited along with other architects to enter a competition to design a new church to replace the dilapidated church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. He won, and on 24 November 1720 he was appointed architect of the new church, which was to be his most famous building. Horace Walpole described Gibbs as being around 1720 as "the architect most in vogue". In 1720 Gibbs was approached by the Provost of King's College, Cambridge to complete the college. The scheme consisted of three buildings, all high, forming a courtyard to the south of the Chapel. In the end only the western block, the long Fellows' Building, was constructed from 1721 to 1724; the eastern Fellows' Building would have been identical, and the southern building would have had a great octastyle Corinthian portico, and been long, containing the great dining hall, Provost's Lodge and offices. On 11 December 1721 Edward Lany, one of the Syndics of University of Cambridge, thanked Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford for sending "Mr Gibbs's design for our building. I design to offer it to the Syndics as soon as they meet...I have not skill enough myself to judge of it". This referred to a design for a new central building for the University to house the library, Senate House, the Consistory and Register Offices. Gibbs produced a second larger design in 1722, consisting of a courtyard building with two projecting wings to the east,. Work started on the building in November 1722, but in the end only the Senate House,, the northern of the two east wings, was built. It was finished in 1730.
By 1723 Gibbs was rich enough to open an account at Drummonds Bank, with his first year's balance being £1055 11 shillings 4 pence. 1723 also saw Gibbs being made a governor of St Bartholomew's Hospital; other governors included fellow architects Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and George Dance the Elder. On 1 August 1728 it was decided to rebuild the Hospital. Gibbs offered his service for free, and designed a quadrangle of with four near-identical plain blocks. In March 1726 Gibbs was made a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London. and in 1727 he was awarded with the only government post he ever held, Architect of the Ordnance, which he held for life. He was given it thanks to John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, who was Master-General of the Ordnance and in 1729 he was elected to the Royal Society. One of the most serious disappointments of Gibbs's career was his failure to win the commission for the Mansion House, London. There were two competitions for the building, both of which he entered – the first in 1728 and a second in 1735; in the end George Dance the Elder won the commission. In 1735, Gavin Hamilton painted A Conversation of Virtuosis... at the Kings Arms, a group portrait that included Michael Dahl, George Vertue, John Wootton, Gibbs and Rysbrack, along with other artists who were instrumental in bringing the Rococo style to English design and interiors. After the death in 1736 of Nicholas Hawksmoor, who was architect for the Radcliffe Camera, Gibbs was appointed on 4 March 1737 to replace him. The Radcliffe Camera was finished by 19 May 1749. Gibbs was awarded by Oxford University an honorary degree of Master of Arts in 1749 recognition of the completion of the Radcliffe Camera.