Frank Matcham

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Frank Matcham

Frank Matcham (born November 22, 1854 in Newton Abbot , Devon , † May 17, 1920 in Southend-on-Sea , Essex ) was a British architect who was best known for building and renovating theaters.

Life

Matcham came from a middle-class family. His father was a manager of a brewery. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Torquay , where Matcham grew up with his seven siblings.

At the age of 14 he began an apprenticeship with George Sondon Bridgeman, a local architect for whom he worked until 1875. Matchman then moved to London , where he worked as an assistant to the theater architect Jethro T. Robinson and in 1877 married his daughter Effie. When Robinson died just months after the wedding, Matcham, 24, took over his father-in-law's business. His first assignment was to complete the plans for the Elephant and Castle Theater, which opened in June 1879.

Matcham and his two collaborators Bertie Crewe and WGR Sprague were responsible for the majority (certainly for more than 200) of theaters and variety buildings in Great Britain between 1890 and 1915. Matcham's office achieved a similarly dominant position in its region during the Wilhelminian boom in theater buildings as the Viennese office Fellner & Helmer in Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Matcham himself built or modernized around 150 theaters. In 1920 he died of heart failure. He is buried in Highgate London Cemetery .

plant

Matcham's most famous structures include:

literature

  • Brian Walker (Ed.): Frank Matcham - Theater Architect . Blackstaff, Belfast 1980
  • John Earl, Michael Sell (Eds.): The Theaters Trust Guide to British Theaters 1750-1950. A gazetteer . A & C Black, London 2000, ISBN 0-7136-5688-3 (Guide to historic UK theaters, includes many of Matcham's structures)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Matcham, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theater architect
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Newton Abbot , Devon , England
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1920
Place of death Southend-on-Sea , Essex , England