John Gwynn

This article is about the architect John Gwynn. For other people, see John Gwynne .

John Gwynn (Image from the National Portrait Gallery)

John Gwynn RA (* 1713 in Shrewsbury ; † February 28, 1786 ibid) was an English architect and civil engineer who became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768 . He advocated greater control over urban planning in London, for which he made detailed proposals. His works include Magdalen Bridge and Oxford Covered Market, as well as various bridges over the River Severn .

Life

Gwynn was born in Shrewsbury , Shropshire , England. He initially worked as a carpenter but then decided to work as a largely self-taught architect and town planner and moved to London , where he became a friend of Samuel Johnson .

In 1749, when Sir Christopher Wren's drawings were sold, Gwynn Wren's plan for the rebuilding of the City of London received and published, adding some comments of his own. Seventeen years later, in 1776, he published London and Westminster Improved , in which he criticized the loose control of building in the West End by saying, "the finest part of town is left to ignorant and capricious persons" ( is "the best city location ignorant and left to capricious people ” ), and demanded that urban development should be controlled by a general plan. He made more than a hundred suggestions for improvements to the capital. These included the new construction of the London Bridge , the construction of a "St. George's Bridge" at the point where the Waterloo Bridge was finally built, the "King's Square" at the location of the Royal Mews (at the later location of Trafalgar Square ) , a royal palace in Hyde Park , a road about the route of the future Regent street by John Nash met, and quays along both sides of the Thames . The Quarterly Review noted in 1826 that

"No part of his ingenious designs was applied: the publication did not seem to have generated any public interest at the time, and so little thought of Mr. Gwynn since that his designs were later re-produced as original plans."

Nevertheless, suggestions similar to his were ultimately implemented. In the 20th century, John Summerson wrote that "the admirable thing about this plan was its complete realism," his only mistake being the belief that London's growth could be halted on Hyde Park to the west and Marylebone Road to the north .

Gwynn was a key figure in introducing the Building Act of 1774, which improved standards in materials and workmanship - Bedford Square was one of the first areas of London to benefit.

In 1759 he unsuccessfully submitted a design in the competition for the new Blackfriars Bridge . Samuel Johnson advertised him by sending three letters to the Daily Gazeteer in support of him, but Robert Mylne's plans were preferred. He was particularly involved in projects at Oxford , including the Magdalen Bridge (1772–90), the City's Workhouse (1772–73) and the Covered Market (1774), and with bridges over the Severn including the " English Bridge ", in his hometown of Shrewsbury (1769), and others in Atcham (1769–71) and Worcester (1781).

He was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768. Samuel Wale , the academy's first professor of perspective, was his assistant first.

An anonymous publication from 1742 entitled The Art of Architecture: A Poem In Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry is generally attributed to Gwynn.

Gwynn died in Shrewsbury in 1786.

literature

• The Royal Academy and its Members 1768-1830, JE Hodgson, Frederick A. Eaton, London, Ed. John Murray, 1905
• Georgian London, John Summerson, Ed. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1962, first edition 1945

Web links

• John Gwynn (1713–1786), Architect Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery , London, accessed December 4, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} John Gwynn (1713–1786), Architect , Ed. National Portrait Gallery, accessed December 10, 2012
2. ↑ ^{a b} Summerson 1962, p. 121
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Summerson 1962, p. 122
4. ↑ Hodgson and Eaton 1905, p. 102
5. ↑ ^{a b c} The Quarterly Review, Architectural Improvements in London, pp. 183/4, 1826, issue 36/67
6. ^ ^{A b} William A. Gibson: The Art of Architecture, A Poem In Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry, Introduction, Project Gutenberg online
7. ↑ Images of England ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2017 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. 
8. ↑ Images of England ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ^ Hodgson and Eaton 1905, p. 12
10. ^ Hodgson and Eaton 1905, p. 65