Search Results

(b Puławy, June 1756; d Florence, Feb 8, 1841).

Polish architect and writer, also active in Italy. He probably studied in Rome in the late 1770s and returned to Italy in 1785–6 under the aegis of Stanisław Kostka Potocki, a collector and amateur architect with whom he collaborated throughout his life. In 1786 Aigner and Potocki refronted the church of St Anna, Warsaw, using a giant composite order on high pedestals. The political turmoil of the 1790s disrupted Aigner’s career, but during his second phase of creativity (1797–1816) he won fame through his work on the great estate of the Czartoryski family at Puławy, on the Vistula west of Lublin, the most important centre of cultural life in Poland during the Enlightenment. Aigner had already erected the Marynka Palace there in 1790, a variation on the Petit Trianon at Versailles, France, and from 1798 he began to add ornamental buildings to go with the new Picturesque layout of the Puławy gardens: a Chinese pavilion, a Gothick house and a peripheral Temple of the Sibyl with a shallow dome. In ...

(b Madrid, July 24, 1849; d Madrid, Dec 15, 1902).

Spanish architect, sculptor and painter, brother of Enrique Mélida y Alinari. He embarked on a military career in 1866 but abandoned it two years later to study architecture, in which he graduated from the Escuela de Arquitectura, Madrid, in 1873 and which was to remain his prime concern. He worked on architectural decoration for the archives and library of the Congreso de los Diputados, the assembly room (Salón de Actos, 1884) of the Ateneo, and the lunettes at S María, Alcoy. He also provided mural and ceiling paintings for various aristocratic mansions in Madrid, including the houses of Zuburu, Veragua, Urquijo and that of the banker Bäuer, the latter in collaboration with the sculptor Mariano Benlliure. In addition he restored the paintings of the façade of the Casa de la Panadería, Madrid. He provided illustrations for several books, including the Leyendas (Madrid, 1901) of José Zorrilla y Moral (...

(b Lobositz [now Lovosice], May 27, 1793; d Kremsier [now Kroměříž], Nov 7, 1851).

Bohemian architect, active in Moravia. He studied at the Royal Professional Polytechnical Institute in Prague under Georg Fischer (1768–1828), in whose office he subsequently worked. During the 1820s he worked on two Bohemian estates of the Chotek family, becoming involved in the final stages of building their country house at Kačina (1802–22), by Christian Friedrich Schuricht (1753–1832) and building some of the many follies in the park at Veltrusy. From 1832 until his death Arche worked in the office of works of the archdiocese of Olmütz (now Olomouc) at Kremsier, in Moravia, becoming director (1833) and later counsellor (1838). Arche worked in two styles, the Neo-classical, for which he derived his ideas from contemporary engravings and particularly the Leipzig Ideenmagazin, and the Gothic Revival, which he used in some of his remodellings. Soon after his arrival at Kremsier, he remodelled (...

(b Drebach, Feb 12, 1823; d Dresden, March 16, 1890).

German architect, teacher and writer. He attended the Gewerbeschule in Chemnitz and studied architecture (1841–50) at the Dresden Kunstakademie under Gustav Heine (1802–80) and Gottfried Semper. In 1849 he was awarded a travel scholarship and visited southern Germany, Italy, France and Belgium. From 1853 he worked as a lecturer in architectural science at the Dresden Kunstakademie, where he was later professor (1861–85). His buildings include the church (1859–64) at Lengefeld, near Plauen-Vogtland, an aisleless Romanesque Revival building with a gallery and flat ceiling; Schloss Eckberg (1859–61) at Loschwitz, near Dresden, built in the Tudor Revival style; the Villa Löschke (1860) in Tolkewitzer Strasse, Dresden, which resembles a manor house in the German Renaissance style; a Romanesque Revival church (1861–3) at Staucha, near Riesa; the Kreuzschule (1864–6), Dresden, in a strict High Gothic style; and the rebuilding of the Sophienkirche (...

(b Carrigrenane, Co. Cork, May 28, 1837; d Killiney, Co. Dublin, Dec 10, 1921).

Irish architect. He received his early education at the Collège de St Servais, Liège. While at St Mary’s College, Oscott (1851–5), with which A. W. N. Pugin was strongly associated, he studied drawing and perspective and developed an interest in architecture. Between 1856 and 1860 he was articled to E. W. Pugin (whose sister Mary he married in 1860) and in 1858 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, London. When in 1859 E. W. Pugin received the commission for SS Peter and Paul, Cork, he made Ashlin a partner with responsibility for their Irish work, a position he retained until about 1870 (see Pugin, E(dward) W(elby)). Their practice was primarily ecclesiastical, the remodelling (1869) of Enniscorthy Castle for Isaac Newton Wallop (1825–91), 5th Earl of Portsmouth, being one of their few domestic projects. They worked on some 25 religious buildings. The Augustinian church of SS Augustine and John, Thomas Street, Dublin (commissioned ...

(b Florence, June 6, 1792; d Florence, July 12, 1867).

Italian architect . He studied under Giuseppe Cacialli at the school of architecture of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, which was directed by Gasparo Maria Paoletti, the leader of the Neo-classical architectural movement in Tuscany. In 1812 Baccani was awarded first prize for architecture in the Accademia’s prestigious triennial competition with a design for a prison, a project that already demonstrated the principal characteristic of Baccani’s work, his alternation between a Neo-classical vocabulary and a medieval, Romantic one. Indeed, his earliest executed works in Florence were the Gothic Revival tower (1817–21) in the garden of the Marchesi Torrigiani in the Via dei Serragli, and the Neo-classical Palazzo Borghese (1821) in the Via Ghibellina. In 1824 he succeeded Cacialli as architect to Florence Cathedral, and in 1826, when the cathedral square was extended to the south, he designed the adaptation and new façade of the Canonica di S Maria del Fiore. He also directed the remodelling of numerous houses in Florence, including the Palazzo Brignole-Durazzo (...

(b Quebec, c. Sept 29, 1826; d Quebec, c. May 10, 1906).

Canadian architect, civil engineer and writer, great-grandson of Jean Baillairgé and second cousin of Thomas Baillairgé. Precocious and restless as a child, he abandoned formal studies at the Séminaire de Québec at 16. Following an apprenticeship with Thomas Baillairgé and his own independent studies, Charles Baillairgé trained in three separate professions—architecture, land surveying and civil engineering—by the age of 22. Unlike the previous generations of his family, he broke clearly from the hybrid craftsman–architect role to become the designer who conceived but did not execute his own work, a development that had parallels in other North American cities in the mid-19th century. Intensely curious about developments in Europe, he also quickly distanced himself from the traditional Neo-classicism of his family to experiment with the latest styles and construction techniques, working in both Gothic Revival and Greek Revival styles. He persuaded the architecturally conservative Roman Catholic clergy to accept Gothic Revival for the majestic parish church of Ste Marie de la Beauce (...

(b Paris, June 8, 1817; d Paris, May 22, 1885).

French architect and writer . He trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in the studio of Louis-Hippolyte Lebas and won the competition for the Prix de Rome in 1840. On his return to Paris from Rome he embarked on a brilliant administrative career, becoming Architecte en Chef, then Inspecteur Général, of the city of Paris, as well as Inspecteur Général des Edifices Diocésains. In the latter capacity, his work in Paris included completing the church of Ste Clothilde (1853–7), begun by Franz Christian Gau, designing the area around and restoring the Tour St Jacques (1854–6) and building the belfry of St Germain l’Auxerrois (1863), all in a Gothic Revival style. He also built the churches of St Denis (1866) at Argenteuil and St Ambroise (1869) in Paris in the Romanesque Revival style, although in general he was an eclectic architect. His two major works were the church of La Trinité (...

(b Moscow, May 7, 1903; d Paris, Jan 25, 1988).

Lithuanian art historian, scholar of folklore and Egyptology, and diplomat of Russian birth. Son of the celebrated Lithuanian Symbolist poet of the same name, Jurgis Baltrušaitis II studied under Henri(-Joseph) Focillon at the Sorbonne and earned the PhD in 1931. The concerns of his mentor are evident in La stylistique ornementale dans la sculpture romane (1931), which reprises and extends arguments for the ‘law of the frame’ in Romanesque sculpture. Accordingly, the shapes of architectural members, such as capitals and tympana, determined the articulation of sculptural forms. This theory could account for the genesis of a wide array of monumental carvings, from foliate capitals to narrative reliefs, but ultimately it had a rather limited impact on the field of Romanesque sculptural studies. In a scathing critique, Schapiro argued that Baltrušaitis’s book—and by implication Focillon’s methods—robbed Romanesque sculptors of agency and neglected the religious and expressive meanings of this art form....

(b Newry, Co. Down, 1830; d Belfast, Sept 23, 1867).

Irish architect . He trained first with Thomas Duff of Newry and then for two years with Edward Gribbon of Dublin before setting up on his own in 1850 in Newry, where he was responsible for a number of buildings. His Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church (1853) there is regarded as marking the change from classical to Gothic Revival style in Non-conformist church architecture in Ulster. His work is most conspicuously seen in Belfast, where he moved in 1860 after winning the prestigious competition for the Ulster Hall (opened 1862). In Belfast he was responsible for the very ornate former Provincial (now Allied Irish) Bank (1864–9) in Royal Avenue; Danesfort (1864), Malone Road, one of the finest High Victorian mansions in Ireland; and the Albert Memorial clock tower (1865–9), a prominent landmark in the city. He was a versatile and prolific architect who produced a great many designs for churches (for five different denominations), country houses, warehouses, mills and banks in various parts of Ireland. He was an eclectic who worked in a variety of styles, ranging from the Lombardic Romanesque of his University Road Methodist Church (...

(b Rouen, Oct 13, 1799; d Rouen, May 31, 1882).

French architect . His was one of the first generations of French architects to take a serious interest in the art of the Middle Ages, a development led by scholars in Normandy. Like most architects of his time, he was trained by analysing historic monuments, in his case concentrating on making drawings (1838–40) of the churches of Rouen and the cathedrals of Amiens, Reims, Rouen and Coutances. He owed his immediate fame to the building of the basilica of Notre-Dame du Bonsecours (1840–42) at Blosseville, near Rouen, the first large-scale French church in an archaeologically correct 13th-century Gothic Revival style. In 1844 he built the funerary chapel at the Château du Plessis at Bouquelon, near Pont-Audemer, with stained glass by Henri Gérente (d 1849) and sculptures by Jean Dusseigneur, and a modest church at les Petits-Vents. Recommended to the clergy by the Abbé Cochet, a well-known scholar of Normandy, Barthélemy then partially or completely rebuilt about 50 churches, mostly in Normandy, including those at Bar-sur-Aube, Beuzeval, Brionne, Blanzy, Bernay, Caudebec-lès-Elbeuf and Oissel. In ...

(Ivanovich)

(b Dol’skoye, Kaluzhskaya Province, March 12, 1737; d St Petersburg, Aug 13, 1799).

Russian architect. From his earliest childhood he lived in Moscow, where his father was a minor cleric in one of the Kremlin churches. He studied painting in Moscow under the important architect Dmitry Ukhtomsky, who accepted him into his school of architecture in 1751 and had him enrolled for classes in fine arts and languages at Moscow University in 1754. As one of the most gifted students he was transferred in 1758 to the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. As its curriculum was not then complete, he studied for two years with Savva Ivanovich Chevakinsky (1713–74/80) during the latter’s construction of the naval church of St Nicholas, and with the Academy’s president, Aleksandr Filippovich Kokorinov (1726–72).

In 1760 Bazhenov was sent on a travelling scholarship to study under Charles de Wailly in Paris, where he became acquainted with a wide circle involved in the theoretical disciplines and the study of architecture. He created his own version of a plan for the Hôtel des Invalides and a model of the Louvre, grasping the distinctive character of the nascent French Neo-classicism. As a foreigner he was not entitled to the Prix de Rome upon graduation from the Académie Royale d’Architecture in ...

(b Doncaster, S. Yorks, Jan 30, 1839; d London, March 2, 1902).

English architect and designer. At 16 he became a builder’s apprentice in London, where in 1857 he joined the firm of Henry Clutton but later declined a partnership with Clutton. He became a Catholic in 1861 and worked almost exclusively for the Catholic Church, although at first he received only minor commissions. He collaborated with Clutton on the small, brick church of St Francis of Assisi (1859–60), Notting Hill, London, built in the early French Gothic style. He moved away from the early French style of G. E. Street and Clutton towards the native English Gothic styles and plans with his additions for the former Paul’s House Convent (1871–2; now Mitre House, Park Street), Taunton, Somerset. His first complete church commission, St Mary (1877–9), Cadogan Street, Chelsea, London, is in a simplified 13th-century English style, with a square-ended chancel. The church of Corpus Christi (...

(b Antwerp, Aug 3, 1803; d Antwerp, Oct 1, 1854).

Belgian architect. The son of a carpenter, he was trained under Adam Erkens, Louis Joseph Adrien Roelandt and Pierre Bourla. Before 1825–6 he became a director of works for the city of Antwerp, where he was responsible for the covering over of the unnavigable watercourses in 1826–8. In 1834 he was appointed provincial architect for Antwerp and in 1841 professor at the Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. The church at Lint that Berckmans designed from c. 1834 was classical in style, but after a journey in 1838–9 to study recent architectural developments in Prussia, Bavaria, Austria, England and France, he became one of the pioneers of the Belgian Gothic Revival. The town hall at Duffel, built after his plans in 1840, was said to be the first in the Gothic Revival style in Belgium, although it remained classical in its symmetrical conception and geometrical outline. From 1841 to 1845...

(b Prague, 1816; d Vienna, May 26, 1886).

Austrian architect. After training at the Polytechnic School in Prague and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna (1838–41), he became an architect in the General-Bau-Direktion, the central building authority in Vienna. In 1850 he was invited by Paul Eduard Sprenger, with whom he had already collaborated on the east wing of the old city town hall (1844) in Prague, to join the institution. Bergmann designed his earliest works in a refined version of the ‘round arch style’ (neo-Romanesque style) that dominated Austrian architecture in the 1850s and 1860s. They included the parish church (1851–3) in Bruneck, South Tyrol, and the campanile (1853–7) in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Yet the neo-Gothic influence of his Prague background and his position in the building department enabled Bergmann to play an important part in the Gothic Revival in Vienna. He began by restoring and rebuilding small provincial medieval churches. In ...

(b Courtrai [Flem. Kortrijk], April 25, 1821; d Marke, June 18, 1894).

Belgian architect, designer, mural and glass painter. Born into a prominent family, he was originally destined for a career in politics or administration but became known, in the words of W(illiam) H(enry) J(ames) Weale, as the ‘ Pugin of Belgium’ (Building News, xxxvi, 1879, p. 350). From 1837 to 1842 he read law at Leuven University and followed a basic training as an artist at the Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Courtrai and as a pupil of L. Verhaegen and Jules Victor Génisson (1805–60). Under the guidance of Paulus Lauters he became a skilful draughtsman of landscapes; he also took lessons with the sculptor C. H. Geerts (1807–55), who was an important pioneer of the Gothic Revival style. Through personal contacts with Charles Forbes René, Comte de Montalembert, and A. W. N. Pugin (see Pugin, A(ugustus) W(elby) N(orthmore)) and through his tours of England in ...

(fl London, 1865–82).

English furniture designer and manufacturer. He may have been trained by the Gothic Revival architect and furniture designer J. P. Seddon, whose work certainly influenced his first published design, a davenport in a geometric Reformed Gothic style, in the Building News of 1865. That year he also advertised a ‘New Registered Reclining Chair’, made by Marsh & Jones of Leeds, whose London showrooms were near his own premises off Cavendish Square. In 1865 Marsh & Jones supplied the Yorkshire mill-owner Sir Titus Salt with a large group of furniture, including a bedroom suite, and in 1867 with the case of an Erard grand piano (all Leeds, Temple Newsam House) designed by Bevan; described at the time as ‘medieval’, the pieces are decorated with geometric marquetry ornament. Bevan designed a bookcase for the Manchester firm James Lamb, which was shown in the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867, and by the following year was also designing for ...

(b Wolverhampton, May 12, 1861; d Wadhurst, E. Sussex, April 6, 1938).

English architect. He was the son of a Midlands architect, George Bidlake (1830–92). After some experience in his father’s office, he worked as assistant to Robert Edis, Bodley & Garner and Rowand Anderson. He began working in Birmingham c. 1888; most of his work, which consists mainly of churches and houses, was done in and around that city. He designed and built nine churches, all but one of which belong to the late phase of the Gothic Revival: they are late Perpendicular in inspiration and inventive in detail. Each has the nave and chancel united in a single airy space. The finest is St Agatha’s (1898–1901), Sparkbrook, Birmingham.

Bidlake’s skill as a domestic architect is seen in the middle-class houses he designed on leafy suburban sites. His own home, Woodgate (1897), 37 Hartopp Road, Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield, and Garth House (1900–01), Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham, are good examples. Composed with careful but relaxed asymmetry and built of good materials, they recall earlier English vernacular building. They show how the English Domestic Revival of the late 19th century was intensified by the Arts and Crafts Movement. Bidlake was personally involved in the movement which flourished in Birmingham at the turn of the century. He also played an important part in the development of architectural education in Birmingham. His practice diminished after World War I, and he retired to Sussex....

(Thomas)

(b London, Aug 25, 1817; d Sydney, Feb 9, 1883).

Australian architect, of English birth. He was the son of James Blacket, a London cloth merchant, and he initially worked in his father’s office and in a linen mill in Yorkshire before becoming a surveyor for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, where he must have obtained a knowledge of building. Blacket also sketched and measured old buildings in his spare time. In 1842 he moved to Sydney, where he obtained an appointment as a ‘valuator’ and perhaps also as an inspector of buildings. He received his first architectural commission in 1843 (All Saints, Singleton; destr.) and went on to become one of the leading architects in New South Wales in the mid-19th century. Appointed Diocesan Architect by 1847, he is known particularly for his Gothic Revival churches, mostly traditional in manner, of which he designed more than 50. Among them are simple country churches (e.g. at Berrima, Picton, Greendale and Wollombi); elegant city buildings (e.g. at Sydney: St Philip’s, ...

(b Stamford, Lincs, 1787; d London, Sept 4, 1879).

English architect. He was the eldest son of Thomas Blore, an antiquarian and lawyer of Stamford. He began as a topographical artist preparing illustrations for his father’s History of Rutland (1811) and several other early 19th-century county histories. By this means he came to the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who employed him in 1816 to improve William Atkinson’s design for Abbotsford (Borders), making it more ‘in the old fashioned Scotch stile’. Blore made an easy transition from topographical artist to architect, but it is not clear how he received his practical training. Certainly by the 1820s he had built up a large architectural practice as a purveyor of Tudor Gothic country houses and Gothic or Norman revival churches. In these he used his unrivalled knowledge of original details, derived from his studies as an antiquarian draughtsman, but he lacked the flair and originality to breathe life into his creations. His churches in particular are competent but dull, and several have been demolished. Some of them, however, were interesting from the structural point of view: St John’s (...