John Summerson

John Newenham Summerson CH CBE (born November 25, 1904 in Darlington , County Durham , England ; † November 10, 1992 , Camden , London , England) was one of the leading British art historians of the 20th century. He dealt primarily with the history of British architecture .

Life

Summerson's ancestors were closely tied to his homeland industry. The grandfather worked for the Stockton and Darlington Railway on which the world's first passengers were transported by rail. His father founded the Thomas Summerson and Sons steel company in Darlington in 1869 .

Summerton attended Harrow School and then University College London , which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1928 . The following year he went to the Edinburgh College of Art as a lecturer in architecture . From 1934 to 1941 he was associate editor of The Architect and Building News magazine and then director of the National Buildings Record for four years

After World War II , Summerson taught architectural history at the Architectural Association and at Birkbeck College , University of London . In 1958/1959 he taught as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University and was elected to the Slade Chair in Cambridge in 1966 . From 1945 to 1984 he was the curator of Sir John Soane's Museum in London .

Act

Summerson's books on architecture in the England of Kings George III. and George VI. , the Georgian Era , as well as his volumes on Christopher Wren , Inigo Jones , The Classical Language of Architecture and The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, are still standard works for laypeople and scholars. In the latter book, he pointed to the importance of the French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée for the development of the innovator of architecture around 1800, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux .

Summerson has served on various commissions over the years , including the Royal Fine Art Commission , the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, and the Historical Manuscripts Commission .

Summerson coined the term Bristol-Byzantine for the Moorish-Byzantine mixed style from Bristol . He was not always an advocate of monument protection everywhere . For example, he advocated the demolition of 16 Georgian- era houses on Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin by the Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB). A house remains in the street and serves as the Museum Number Twenty Nine Lower Fitzwilliam Street .

Awards and honors

• 1954 elected member ( Fellow ) of the British Academy .
• 1967 election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
• 1976: Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects .
• 1984: Commander of the Order of the British Empire .
• 1986: Order of the Companions of Honor on December 31st. 1986.
• 2012: Blue Plaque , attached to the London apartment building in Chalk Farm , where he lived until his death.

Publications

• 1943: The Microcosm of London , photographs by T. Rowlandson and ACPugin, Penguin Books, London / New York.
• 1947: The Architectural Association 1847-1947 . Pleiades Books, London 1947.
• 1953: Sir Christopher Wren . Collins Clear Type Press, London.
• 1952: Sir John Soane 1753-1837 . Art and Technics, 1952.
• 1966: Inigo Jones . Pelican series: The Architect and Society . Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.
• 1966: The Classical Language of Architecture , Series: University Paperbacks. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London and The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
  • German by Wolf Koenigs : The classic language of architecture . Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-52808763-3 .
• 1968: as editor. Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing; presented to Nikolaus Pevsner . Allen Lane, London and Penguin Press.
• 1972: The Architecture of Victorian London . University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, ISBN 0-813905923 .
• 1977: Architecture in Britain 1530 to 1830 , Series: The Pelican History of Art. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, ISBN 0-14-056003-3 .
• 1980: New edition with James Maude Richards: The Life and Work of John Nash , Architect . MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
• 1986: The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century .
  • 1987: German by Hannes W. Schoeller and Brigitte Weitbrecht: The architecture of the 18th century . Hatje, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-7757-0237-7 .
• 2003: Georgian London , Barrie & Jenkins, London, ISBN 0-7126-2095-8 .

literature

• Howard Colvin / John Harris: The Country Seat: Studies in the History of British Country House , presented to Sir John Summerson on his sixty-fifth birthday together with a Select Bibliography of his Published Writings. Allen Lane, London 1970, ISBN 0-713901136 .
• Howard Colvin: John Newenham Summerson, 1904-1992 . In: Proceedings of the British Academy . tape 90 , 1996, pp. 467-495 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fellows: Sir John Summerson. British Academy, accessed August 3, 2020 . 
2. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 11, 2016