scholarly journals The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice)

Leonardo ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 474-475
Author(s):  
Chris Meigh-Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Digital Video ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Video Installation ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Panoramic Images ◽  
Continuous Stream ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

This paper describes the concepts, ideas, background and operations of The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice), a digital video installation that produces a continuous stream of weather-responsive panoramic images from the top of the Monument in the City of London. The work, which was commissioned by Julian Harrap Architects, was part of a £4.5 million refurbishment of the 17th-century landmark, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Dr. Robert Hooke to commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666.

scholarly journals The limits of collaboration: Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren and the designing of the monument to the great fire of London

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew F. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Professional Relationship ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
City Of London ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The City ◽  
Recent Tendency ◽  
Do So

This article showcases my recent research into the professional relationship between Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, two of the early Royal Society's most prominent scientists and architects. There has been a recent tendency in architectural history to see Wren and Hooke as informal architectural collaborators, the co-designers of several important works in post-fire London. These include Greenwich Royal Observatory, the rebuilt parish churches in the City of London and, most prominently, the recently restored Monument to the Great Fire of London. In this article I argue that this reading of their relationship is a problematic one, ultimately dependent on an equally problematic account of their friendship. To do so I explore Wren and Hooke's professional relationship with regard to the Monument. I show, using new evidence, that their roles in the designing of the column have been misunderstood and that the final design can now be attributed to Hooke alone. Rather than being informal collaborators, Wren and Hooke did not stray from their duties as Royal Surveyor and City Surveyor, respectively, and Wren's contribution to the commissioning and designing of the Monument was as a consultant and ratifier only. In this respect their professional relationship as architects differed from their work as Royal Society scientists, in which informal collaboration was not only permissible but also encouraged. Overall, this conclusion has significant implications for our understanding of Wren and Hooke's careers as architects and sheds new light on one of early modern England's most important buildings.

Editorial. An Italian correspondence, an Italian earthquake and the homes of The Royal Society

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Terry Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
College Professors ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City ◽  
The Mansion ◽  
Italian Earthquake

Introduction to the January 2005 issue of Notes and Records with a reproduction of an engraving by Nehemiah Grew, date unknown. The engraving shows Gresham College, Bishopsgate, London, the mansion of Sir Thomas Gresham and the original home of The Royal Society from 1660–1710, except for a short period just after the Great Fire of London when the Society was at Arundel House. The Society was founded at Gresham College following a lecture by Christopher Wren, at that time Gresham Professor of Astronomy. The College was named after Sir Thomas Gresham, son of Sir Richard Gresham, Lord Mayor of London (1537–38), who conceived the idea, brought to fruition by his son, of the Royal Exchange modelled on the Antwerp Bourse. Gresham College professors continue to give free public lectures in the City of London.

VI.—On the Destroyed Church of St. Michael Wood Street, in the City of London, with some Notes on the Church of St. Michael Bassishaw

Archaeologia ◽  
1902 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-216
Author(s):  
Philip Norman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Severely Injured ◽  
Tower Of London ◽  
The Past ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
The Church

From the artistic and antiquarian points of view, the systematic destruction of our old City churches under the Union of Benefices Act is greatly to be deplored. Under this Act the churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren have especially suffered; and here I will venture to say a few words on that famous architect and his work. A dire catastrophe sometimes calls forth the energies of the master mind that can grapple with it; this was the case, when, after the Great Fire of 1666, by which eighty-six parish churches were destroyed or severely injured, Wren at that time, hardly a professional architect, turned his attention to the City. He first produced a plan for general rebuilding, which would have given free scope to his genius, although at the same time destroying many links with the past. The chief public buildings were to have been grouped round the Royal Exchange, which would have formed an important centre; St. Paul's Cathedral being approached from the east by two broad converging streets. A river quay, in part adorned by the City Halls, would have extended from Black-friars to the Tower of London; while the churches, greatly reduced in number, were to occupy commanding and isolated sites, their burial grounds being outside the City. For reasons which it is here not necessary to discuss, this proposal was not accepted; and so the City grew again, more or less on its old irregular lines. To Wren, however, was assigned the task of rebuilding or repairing not only St. Paul's Cathedral, but, if we include St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Sepulchre, both only repaired, no fewer than fifty-two other churches, The remainder were not rebuilt, their parishes being united -with adjoining parishes which continued to possess churches. The ancient burial grounds were, to a great extent, retained, and burials continued in them until after the middle of the nineteenth century.

Robert Hooke's work as surveyor for the City of London in the aftermath of the Great Fire. Part one: Robert Hooke's first surveys for the City of London

1997 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. R. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Reasonable Estimate ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Urgent Task ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

It is known that Robert Hooke was one of the Surveyors appointed after the Great Fire to assist the City in its urgent task of rebuilding, but until now only a very general understanding of the extent of his work and the time he spent on it has been gained. By examining contemporary manuscripts from the City of London's records it is now possible to make a reasonable estimate of the time he spent on the first major activities he was called upon to undertake amidst the ruins: the staking out of widened streets; and the staking out, measurement and certification of foundations of private buildings. Evidence that he staked out and certified nearly 3000 foundations between March 1667 when rebuilding began and 1672 when he started his diary is discussed and presented against a general background of the three organisations for which he worked: the Royal Society, Gresham College and the City.

Suburban Models, or Calvinism and Continuity in London’s Seventeenth-Century Church Architecture

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 69-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Guillery
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Church Architecture ◽  
National Context ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Church Building ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

The history of church architecture in seventeenth-century London lacks threads of continuity. It is dominated by two great men, Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, whose contributions could not and did not straddle the whole metropolis or the whole of the century. Besides, the devising of a new church was too significant an act to be left entirely to those capable of architectural design. There is a related misconception that churches were seldom built in London between the Reformation and the Great Fire of 1666. Yet even within the City of London, numerous parish churches were rebuilt during this period, while Jones substantially remodelled Old St Paul’s Cathedral. Beyond the City, much more was happening. London’s earliest seventeenth-century suburban churches were broadly Gothic in style and medieval in type, while those built at the end of the century were entirely classical auditories. The same could be said of church building in a national context, although not without hefty qualification. What is fascinating, important, and insufficiently studied, is the nature of this transition and its wider historical meanings.

Frederick Slare, F. R. S. (1648-1727)

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-41 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Young Men ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
John Wallis ◽  
Christopher Wren

When the Royal Society was founded in 1660, its initiators were far from being young men, as one would expect remembering that the long-lived John Wallis (1616-1703) gave its origins as lying in meetings begun as long before as 1645. Fifteen years after that date, most of its founders were, in 1660, well on in their 40s; even among the original Fellows of 1663 the youngest were Christopher Wren (38 in 1660), Robert Boyle (33) and William Croone (27), nor were the first recruits to the new, formal Society younger. Hence it is not surprising that the next 20 years saw the loss through death of the majority of them, nor that those who survived into the 1680s slowly withdrew from active participation in the meetings. Even Robert Hooke, only 27 when appointed Curator of Experiments in 1662, was by 1680 well on in years by 17th-century usage, and reasonably more interested in his various professional activities than anxious to labour at performing repetitions of experiments for the edification of fellow-members.

scholarly journals Croonian Lecture:—The laws of muscular motion

1926 ◽  
Vol 100 (701) ◽  
pp. 87-108 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Local Motion ◽  
Annual Lecture ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Usual Manner ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

On November 28,1660, a small body of learned men “according to the usuall custom of most of them” met together at Gresham College in the city of London to hear a lecture by one of their number, Mr. (later Sir Christopher) Wren. “After the lecture was ended, they did, according to their usual manner, withdrawe for mutual converse. Where, amongst other matters that were discoursed of, something was offered about a designe of founding a Colledge for the promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning.” From this “converse,’’ thus recorded in its first Journal-book, arose later the Royal Society. The record adds “Mr. Croone, though absent” (and aged only27) “was named for Register.” Dr. William Croone, Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College, Doctor of Medicine of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and author of a book “ De Ratione Motus Musculorum ,” published in 1664, dying in 1684, left a plan for an annual lecture before the Royal Society, on muscular motion, but no provision for it in his will. His widow, who married again, Dame Mary Sadleir, by her will dated 1701, remedied that omission, and directed that one-fifth of the clear rent of the “King’s Head Tavern” should be vested in the Royal Society for “the Settling a Lecture for the Advancement of Natural Knowledge,” more specifically “A Lecture or Discourse of the Nature and Property of Local Motion, and the application of the Doctrine thereof to explicate the causes and reasons of the Phenomena : every such Lecture and Discourse to be accompanied always, and joined with an Experiment proper for it.” This last provision in Lady Sadleir’s will was interpreted by the Society as a means “ to prevent the Lecture from becoming the vehicle of unsubstantial theories .”

scholarly journals Pandemics and the development of scientific methods in the history of epidemiology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Morabia
Keyword(s):  
17Th Century ◽  
Mortality Data ◽  
Population Thinking ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human And Social Sciences ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

The Covid-19 pandemic has made me see the history of epidemiology differently. Pandemics are such impressive events that they can exert urgent pressure to identify new modes of research and new methodologies to replace methods that have failed in the past. Some examples seem to corroborate this idea. The plague There is no doubt that one of the most important events in the history of science occurred in the 17th century when population thinking was discovered. All human and social sciences such as sociology, demography, Darwinian biology, political economy, statistics and epidemiology, have their origin in the discovery that dictates that events in populations can be predictable and have a probability of occurrence. Then the occurrence of events in populations can be quantified, can be compared between populations and can be the source of scientific knowledge. This true revolution in scientific thought is a consequence of changes in society that occurred due to plague pandemics. Since the great pandemic of the 14th century, outbreaks of plague in Europe caused great confusion in cities and increasingly threatened existing powers. It was the case of the monarchical society of England. In the event of an outbreak of plague in London, the nobles, the wealthy, and the army left the city, where only the poor remained. The situation became chaotic in London. It was quickly clear that there was a certain chronological regularity in the outbreaks. They started with a small but growing number of deaths in some parishes before spreading throughout the city. In the 16th century the city of London began to collect data on the number and location of pest deaths. The system was improved in the 17th century and extended to all causes of death, making it possible -by the end of the century- to organize orderly outings from London in the event of an outbreak of plague, preventing chaos. These data were printed and placed on the walls of the city. They were called the “Bills of mortality”, death posters. In this process, a temporal series of mortality data was established in London over decades.

scholarly journals Robert Hooke as a Surveyor and Architect

1948 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-55 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
The Subject ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

The work that Robert Hooke performed for the Royal Society over a period of forty years is well known. His many inventions and experiments have been the subject of numerous papers and there are few standard scientific works which do not record some aspect of his achievements, The fact that he was surveyor to the City of London after the Great Fire is also recorded, but it is not generally appreciated that he was an architect of no mean ability.

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