Reginald Blomfield
Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield RA (born December 20, 1856 in Aldington, Kent , † December 27, 1942 ) was a British architect , garden designer and author .
Life
Blomfield was the son of the local chief pastor and attended Haileybury School and Exeter College , Oxford , where he completed his first degree with a humanistic exam . His uncle, Sir Arthur Blomfield, was an architect and Reginald Blomfield began training with him. He studies architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London , after a stay abroad between 1883/84 he began his work in London. He became secretary in the Guild of Craftsmen and the Society for Fine Arts.
In 1892 he criticized landscaped gardens , which in his opinion are only an imitation of nature . He demanded an artistic penetration of the house and garden and wanted a harmonious connection that should be characterized by internal order, regularity and uniform greening.
At the beginning of the First World War he was used as an officer in the registration of the fallen . The initiator of the Royal War Graves Commission (later: Commonwealth War Graves Commission , CWGC) Sir Fabian Ware , whom Blomfield met here, persuaded him in 1918 to participate in the drafting of military cemeteries . The "Cross of Sacrifice" designed by him (high cross with crusader sword, also known as the Great War Cross ) still adorns all Commonwealth soldiers' cemeteries of the First and Second World Wars . The uniform horticultural style he preferred, dominated by symmetry , was reflected in the structural regulations of the CWGC.
1919 Blomfield was knighted as a Knight Bachelor ("Sir").
Blomfield's horticultural philosophy
Blomfield rejected the natural design of gardens and pleaded for a return to the formal gardens of the Middle Ages . For him, the garden was a logical extension of the house and its rooms and thus a sequence of its various functions . His opponent, William Robinson , again declared war on the strictly geometric , Victorian garden and advocated a naturalized garden. Eventually the new English garden emerged from the union of the Robinsons' natural garden and the formal garden of Blomfield , the main representatives of which were Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens .
Honors
- 1905 Elected and accepted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (architecture)
- 1906 honorary member of Exter College, Oxford
- 1906–1910 he was a professor of architecture
- In 1913 he received the gold medal from the Royal Institute for British Architecture (RIBA) and in 1914 became President of the RIBA
- 1914 election as a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts
- 1914 Honored by the French government (Officier de l'Instruction publique)
- 1920 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Liverpool
- 1929 honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1933 honorary membership ( Honorary NA ) of the National Academy of Design in New York
Buildings (selection)
- In 1906 he designed his first independent work, the extension of the United University Club on Pall Mall in London, after which he first worked on his own works and developed his style. Over the years he designed several buildings, such as:
- 1927 The Menenpoort is a memorial commissioned after the First World War, which was built in Ypres as the entrance gate to the Commonwealth war cemetery. The gate bears the names of 54,896 missing soldiers .
- St. George's Memorial Church was built according to his plans, this memorial church contains numerous memories of the First World War.
- Renewal of the Lambeth Bridge over the Thames in London
- Lady Margaret College and Hall at Oxford University
- Royal Air Force Memorial (Royal Air Forces Memorial) in London
- Goldsmiths College at the University of London
- 1927 Usher Gallery in Lincoln (Lincolnshire) , art collection of James Ward Usher (1845–1921)
In the early years of the 20th century, Blomfield was interested in facade construction and created the distinctive uniform structure and uniformed construction method for him, his works are:
- 1920 facade construction on Regent Street, a main shopping street in London, and in Piccadilly Circus
- 1929 Facade construction on the main street “Headrow” in Leeds
- War cemetery in Contay
Fonts
- 1908 textbook "The Mistress Art"
- 1892 “The Formal Garden in England” with illustrations by Inigo Thomas; 1901 the 3rd edition, on the theoretical foundations of the architectural garden
- 1897 History of Renaissance, on architecture in England
- 1921 A History of French Architecture. (4 volumes - covers the period from 1494 to 1774) Reprint 1973
- 1932 Memoirs of an Architect
- 1934 modernism , against modern architecture whereby he assigned the German, French and English architectural styles strictly to the nations.
- 1938 biography about " Sebastian Le Preste de Vauban "
- 1940 biography of Richard Norman Shaw
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Database entry of the Royal Academy of Arts , accessed April 14, 2013
- ^ Honorary Members: Reginald Blomfield. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 6, 2019 .
- ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "B" / Blomfield, Sir Reginald Honorary 1933 ( Memento of the original from August 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on June 16, 2015)
- ↑ www.stgeorgesmemorialchurchypres.com
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Blomfield, Reginald |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Blomfield, Sir Reginald Theodore |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British architect, garden designer and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 20, 1856 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aldington, Kent |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 27, 1942 |