( One of England's most respected and influential archite...)
One of England's most respected and influential architects, James Gibbs was born in Scotland, studied in Rome, and left a legacy of design the world will treasure forever. His legendary 1728 folio, a sprawling gallery of Gibbs's magnificent drawings, perspectives, and blueprints, is a brilliant testimony to his remarkable talent. Profusely illustrated, the volume features such notable commissions as London's St. Martin in the Fields — the inspiration for many steeple churches of the colonial period in America; St. Mary le Strand, his first public building; Marybone Chapel; The Church of Allhallows in Derby; plus Gibbs's first commission, an addition for King's College at Cambridge. His most outstanding accomplishment may be the circular Radcliffe Library at Oxford, for which he received a Master of Arts. Also included here are detailed floor plans, plus fine drawings of decorative marble cisterns, ornamental iron gates, stately funeral monuments, and much more. Essential for an understanding of classic architecture, this stunning edition should grace the bookshelf of every architect, as well as architectural students, teachers, and historians.
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James Gibbs was born at Footdeesmire near Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom, on 23 December 1682. A younger son of a Patrick Gibbs merchant and his second wife Ann née Gordon, the family was Roman Catholic; there was a half-brother William from the first marriage to Isabel née Farquhar. As a young man, he traveled on the Continent, pursuing his fondness for drawing.
He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College. In Rome he determined to become an architect and entered the school of Carlo Fontana. He was also taught by Pietro Francesco Garroli, professor of perspective at the Accademia di San Luca.
Gibbs became acquainted with many members of the English aristocracy, for whom he made drawings and who were helpful to him in later life. He returned to England in 1709. Through the influence of Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, Gibbs was made one of the surveyors to the commissioners for building 50 new churches in London in 1713, and in this capacity he designed St. Mary-le-Strand (1714 - 1717), his first public building. Here he expressed not only influences of Sir Christopher Wren but also ideas absorbed from Italian baroque and mannerist architecture.
Gibbs was employed by Lord Burlington in rebuilding the east block of Burlington House, Piccadilly, before that patron embraced Palladianism, but was superseded by the earl's protegé, Colen Campbell.
When the Whigs, who supported the Palladians, came to power, Gibbs as a Tory of baroque tendencies lost his official post in 1715, but his private practice among Tory patrons continued to be exclusive and remunerative. He built Cannons House, Middlesex (1716-1719; demolished 1747) for the Duke of Chandos; added a chapel and library at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire (ca. 1720), for Lord Harley; built the exquisite Octagon Room at Twickenham, Middlesex (1720), with beautiful plasterwork by Italian stuccoworkers; and erected Ditchley House, Oxfordshire (1720 - 1725), probably his most splendid house, for the Earl of Lichfield, again with remarkable plasterwork by Italian craftsmen. But public commissions were not entirely lacking.
In 1720 Gibbs designed St. Martins-in-the-Fields (built 1722 - 1726), one of his outstandingly beautiful works. Like St. Mary-le-Strand and many of his houses, the interior was decorated with plasterwork by the fashionable Italian stuccoworkers, who probably came to England through his encouragement.
St. Martins was followed by another building of extreme elegance and dignity, the Senate House at Cambridge (1722 - 1730), as well as the new buildings of King's College. Many of the ornamental buildings in the park at Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, are his work, including the Temple of Diana (1726), the Temple of Friendship (1739), the Gothic Temple (1740), and the Column with a statue of Lord Cobham.
Gibbs's general influence among architects and clients was great because of his exhaustive knowledge of architecture acquired through long study in Rome, an experience rare among architects of that generation, although later more common. This influence he extended by means of his Book of Architecture (1728), a record of both his executed and unexecuted work, and especially his Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture (1732), a work used by countless architects, students, scholars, and builders up to the present day.
Of Gibbs's later works the circular Radcliffe Library at Oxford (1737 - 1749) is his most ambitious and monumental achievement; it shows much influence of Nicholas Hawksmoor. Gibbs published the designs in the large folio volume Bibliotheca Radcliviana in 1747. He designed the new decorations of Ragley Hall, Warwickshire (ca. 1750 - 1755), in the rococo taste then becoming fashionable.
A distinguished late work is the church of St. Nicholas at Aberdeen (1751 - 1755). In his last years Gibbs held the sinecure post of architect to the Office of Ordnance. He died in London on Aug. 5, 1754.
In his early buildings Gibbs displayed the discreet form of the baroque which he had absorbed from Carlo Fontana in Rome and also from Wren's example. The most famous example of his early buildings - St. Mary-le-Strand church.
In his later buildings the exterior form conformed more closely to severe Palladian principles, but the interiors retained a baroque exuberance. The most famous example of his later buildings - Radcliffe Library at Oxford.
His most famous published work - A Book of Architecture, contains building designs both executed and not, as well as numerous designs for ornaments. He was the first British architect to publish a book devoted to his own designs.
( One of England's most respected and influential archite...)
Gibbs was fond of wine and food, was described as "corpulent".
Quotes from others about the person
Horace Walpole described Gibbs as being around 1720 as "the architect most in vogue".
Gibbs never married.
