Sir Charles Barry
b. 1795 - d. 1860Charles Barry was born
in London in 1795. At the age of 15 he apprenticed to a London surveyor, but when
his father died Barry was left a legacy which allowed him to travel throughout
Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Syria, studying buildings and making
architectural drawings. Upon his return to England, Barry began designing
churches for the Church Commissioners. He discovered that they preferred designs
in Gothic and Greek styles, so he concentrated his efforts in those areas, building
churches in London, Brighton, and Manchester. The Italian influence was
strong in Barry's designs, and he was a leading figure in the mid-Victorian architectural
stlye known as Anglo-Italian that held vogue before Victorian Gothic became popular.
Despite this, Barry was skilled in a variety of design styles, from Greek Revival
to Italian Rennaissance, Gothic to Elizabethan, and suited his designs to the
requirements of the job at hand. In 1824 he won his first major civic commission,
the Royal Institution in Manchester (later to become the City Art Gallery). This
success was followed by two influential clubs in London, The Traveller's Club
(1830) and the Reform Club (1838). The Reform Club design, based on Italian Rennaissance
palace layout, was widely copied. Barry later used the Italian Rennaissance
palace theme into a variety of town houses and country house commissions, including
Bridgewater House (London, 1846), Cliveden (Buckinghamshire, 1859), and Harewood
(Yorkshire). He also worked extensively on Highclere Castle (Hampshire, 1842),
where he adapted his work sympathetically to the largely Elizabethan structure.
He also developed the classical Treasury Building in Whitehall, London (1846).
Despite these successes, it is for his work with one building in particular that
Barry will always be remembered. In 1834 the old Palace of Westminster,
where the House of Commons had met since 1547, was destroyed by fire. The only
parts of the medieval Palace to survive were Westminster Hall, the Jewel Tower,
the crypt of St Stephen's Chapel, and the adjacent cloisters. A public
competition was held to develop a design for the rebuilding of the Palace. Bary's
design was chosen the winner over 95 other architects, and over the next several
decades years he worked closely with AW
Pugin to create the neo-Gothic masterpiece popularly known as the Houses of
Parliament. The design was essentially classical - a tribute to Barry's Italian
training, but with a plenitude of Gothic details by Pugin. The surviving
parts of the medieval Palace were skillfully incorporated into the overall design
of the new buildings, which also includes the Victoria Tower, at 336 feet considered
the tallest tower in the world at the time of its construction. At the opposite
end of the building rises the much more famous clock tower known as Big Ben (though
the name more accurately refers to the bell that tolls the hours, not the tower
itself or its large clock-face). Barry's design did not meet with universal
approval; when the Commons finally met in their new chambers in 1852, members
complained that the high ceilings produced poor acoustics. So Barry was forced
to lower the ceilings, thus spoiling the Gothic proportions he had striven to
emulate. The family tradition for prominent public architecture was carried
on by three of Barry's sons. John Wolfe-Barry designed Tower Bridge in London,
Charles Barry rebuilt Burlington House in Piccadilly, London, and Edward Barry
finished his father's work on the Palace of Westminster and the Town Hall of Halifax,
Yorkshire, as well as redesigning the Covent Garden Opera House in London. To
see in Britain:
Manchester City Art Gallery
The Treasury Building,
Whitehall, London
The Royal College of Surgeons, London
Bowood, Wiltshire
Cliveden, Buckinghamshire
Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfries and Galloway
Duncombe
Park, North Yorkshire
Dunrobin Castle, Highland
Edgbaston Hall, West Midlands
Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire
Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire
Harewood House, West
Yorkshire
Highclere Park, Hampshire
Hinton Manor, Oxfordshire
Kiddington
Hall, Oxfordshire
Kingston Lacy, Dorset
Parliament Square, Westminster,
London
Sandon Park, Staffordshire
More:
Architecture
British Biography History
Prehistory - Roman
Britain - Dark Ages - Medieval
Britain - The Tudor Era - The
Stuarts - Georgian Britain - The Victorian Age
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