Matthew Brettingham

Matthew Brettingham (* 1699 ; † 1769 ), sometimes also called Matthew Brettingham the Elder , was one of the most famous British architects of his time. However, many of his buildings have been destroyed or rebuilt over the centuries. In London , where he significantly influenced the construction of the large townhouses, none of the houses he built is open to the public. For this reason, he is often overlooked as an architect today. He is occasionally remembered for the countless country houses that he converted in the Palladian style . Many can still be found in East Anglia , England today . At the height of Brettingham's career, Palladianism went out of fashion and classicism came into vogue, promoted by the young Robert Adam .

Holkham Hall

Life

Early years

Matthew Brettingham was born in 1699. His father was Launcelot Brettingham, a bricklayer who lived in Norwich in Norfolk , England . Otherwise little is known about Matthew Brettingham's early life and family. One of the earliest documents to name him is from 1719, the year he and his brother Robert acquired the right to work as a bricklayer in Norwich. A criticism by a contemporary from this period has also come down to us. He claimed that Brettingham's work was so poor that it was not worth the nine shillings he was paid a week as a bricklayer. As always, the quality was ordered his work, Matthew Brettingham worked very soon as an independent contractor or master craftsman ( contractor ).

Work as a building contractor

During the early 18th century, contractors were responsible for much more than they are today, because they often designed and built the building and were responsible for all the details of its construction through to completion. Architects - often called surveyors - were only called in for the largest and most magnificent buildings. As early as 1730, the term surveyor was also applied to Brettingham, and in fact he was already designing more important buildings at that time. In 1731, there is evidence that he received £ 112 for his work at the Norwich City Prison. Until 1740 he received regular orders from administrative authorities in Norwich for the construction of public buildings and bridges. One of the projects from this time was the renovation of Shire House in Norwich. Brettingham was supposed to remodel the house and supervise the construction. The work involved a lengthy legal process that dragged on through most of Brettingham's life. He was accused of financial irregularities. It wasn't until 1755 that the case was closed that cost Brettingham hundreds of pounds and damaged his reputation - albeit possibly only in the Norwich area. Court records indicate that Brettingham had subcontracted his brother Robert and the financial irregularities were due to his brother.

Promotion to architect

Holkham Hall - plan

There is no evidence that Brettingham ever formally studied architecture or traveled abroad. However, the British Dictionary of National Biography attributes him two trips abroad. This is probably due to a mix-up with Brettingham's son Matthew Brettingham the Younger.

Brettingham owed his first great opportunity to become an architect to a wealthy young country gentleman, Thomas Coke (1697–1759). Coke received the title of Baron Lovell , of Minster Lovell in 1729 , and was promoted to Earl of Leicester in 1744 . On a long-term grand tour of the continent he had acquired immeasurable art treasures (including Leonardo's sketchbook known as Codex Leicester , now owned by Bill Gates) and was eager to build a large country house to store these things.

The oldest surviving plans for this building, Holkham Hall , come from Brettingham's hand; In 1726 he received a fee of 10 guineas (around 1500 pounds based on today's purchasing power). But it would be a mistake to assume that it was the intellectual author of the draft. Thomas Coke himself was the driving force behind the concept, and Brettingham was its Adlatus and Clerk of Works , overseer of the works. With the death of Coke in 1759 Brettingham lost his post; Coke's widow completed the castle by 1765.

Thanks to the excellent contacts of his patron Leicester, Brettingham also got other assignments, in which he repeatedly proved to be competent but not very original.

In 1740 Brettingham was commissioned to rebuild and modernize Langley Hall. Langley Hall was a large manor house that stood in spacious gardens in southern Norfolk. Brettingham's design for this manor house was similar to that for Holkham Hall, albeit in a significantly reduced size. Langley Hall was to receive a large central structure, which was flanked by two secondary side wings. The central building and the wings were connected by short galleries. The corner towers that adorn this building today are similar to those that Brettingham later had built for Euston Hall. However, they are the addition of a later owner who was himself an architect. The neo-classical annexes that complement the house today are also a later addition by the architect John Soane .

Gunton Park with Gunton Hall

In 1745 Brettingham took over the construction of Hanworth Hall , a brick building in the Palladian style with a facade of five window axes. The three central window axes emerge as a risalit from the facade and are vaulted by a triangular gable . In the same year Brettingham also designed Gunton Hall in Norfolk for Sir William Harbourd . The previous building was destroyed by fire in 1742. The new brick house also had a main facade with five window axes, of which the three central windows were again emphasized by a risalit and vaulted by a triangular gable. Despite the main facade of the same size, Gunton Hall was larger than Hanworth Hall with the side facade consisting of seven window axes. In the west, a utility wing was attached to the house.

Townhouses in London

The year 1747 was a turning point in Brettingham's career. He no longer only worked for the Norfolk nobles, but also received orders from the English nobility. In 1750 he received his most important commission to date. Again, however, the construction site was in East Anglia. Brettingham was to rebuild the Norfolk country estate of the influential Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton . The original building was erected in 1666 around a large inner courtyard, with the corner towers vaulted with domes. Brettingham retained the original development, but applied the stricter design language of Palladianism. Among other things, the facades of the corner towers were restructured and the domes replaced by low hipped roofs, which resembled those of Holkham Hall. Brettingham also converted another courtyard that served as a farmyard. Today this courtyard has the function of the so-called courtyard of honor to the main house, as only part of the buildings of Euston Hall has been preserved.

The renovation at Euston Hall drew the attention of a number of very wealthy builders to Brettingham. Among other things, Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont , commissioned Brettingham in 1754 to build a picture gallery for Petworth House , West Sussex . One of his most important buildings, however, was the erection of a town house for Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk , on St. James's Square in London. The building, completed in 1756, looked outwardly like the great palaces of Italian cities. The facade was simple, dispensed with columns and only emphasized the central window axes with a risalit. Some critics found the construction too simple and described the facade as bland.

The way in which the Norfolk House suites were laid out, however, determined the construction of London townhouses for the next century. On the floor that was used for representation purposes (so-called piano nobile ), a series of reception rooms surrounded a large staircase, the staircase being at the point where the inner courtyard or the two-story reception hall was in traditional Italian palace buildings.

In the room layout designed by Brettingham, the hosts welcomed their guests at the foot of the central staircase at large receptions. From there, the guests could be directed to the reception rooms without meeting the guests arriving after him. Each reception room led into the next and also had a door to the central stairwell. This construction method also allowed smaller receptions in which only one or two rooms were used. Previously, guests had to go through a flight of smaller rooms before reaching the main salon. With the compact design that Brettingham implemented here, he came very close to the ideal design of a typical Palladian country house. However, Brittingham adapted the principles that Andrea Palladio once developed for a rural retreat to a townhouse according to the needs of the British aristocracy. While Italian nobles usually maintained a large city palace and a small country house, it was the other way around for the British nobility. The British country castles were often very extensive; the townhouses were comparatively small, but had important representative functions. The concept that Brettingham implemented here was later taken up and further developed by Robert Adam.

Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, for whom Brettingham had remodeled Petworth House, also gave Brettingham the next major contract for a London townhouse. Now known as Cambridge House , the palace was built between 1756 and 1760 and is one of the few large London townhouses that still stand today. It became known as the seat of the Naval & Military Club , which it housed until 1999.

Kedleston Hall

After Sir Nathaniel Curzon had rejected the design of the renowned architect James Gibbs for a large and representative country house, Brettingham was commissioned to design and build this building in 1759. The building was to be as large as Holkham Hall - it was Curzon's express wish that the building should correspond in its splendor to the nearby Chatsworth House . The background to this desire was political rivalries. Curzon was a Tory who came from a very old Derbyshire family. Chatsworth House, on the other hand, belonged to the Duke of Devonshire, who was a Whigs and whose family had only been in the county for two hundred years. However, Curzon was not equal to the Duke in terms of title, influence or wealth. Kedleston Hall was ultimately never completed.

For Brettingham, this contract could have been the highlight of his career. Unlike Holkham Hall, he would have had the glory of building this manor alone. Brettingham's design for Kedleston Hall was based on a plan by Andrea Palladio for the Villa Mocenigo, which was never built. Similar to Holkham Hall, a central building was to be surrounded by four side wings. Each side wing resembled a small country house in its exterior and was connected to the main house by galleries. From the beginning, however, Curzon transferred individual construction phases to architects competing with Brettingham. While Brettingham was overseeing the first construction phase in 1759, in which the Curzon family's house was to be built, Curzon commissioned the architect James Paine to build the kitchen block. Paine was also given the task of overseeing the construction of Brettingham's great north facade. This came at a time when Palladianism was increasingly falling out of fashion in favor of classicism . One of the most important representatives of classicism was Robert Adam, whom Curzon had already met in 1758. The young architect had just returned to the UK from Rome and he was so impressed by Curzon that he entrusted him with the design of some of the garden pavilions for Kedleston Hall. So convincing was Adam's work that in April 1760, Curzon entrusted him with all of the work at Kedleston Hall, relieving Brettingham and Paine from their work. Adam completed the north facade of the main house largely according to Brettingham's design. However, while Brettingham had provided eight columns for the north portal, Adam reduced the number to six, thereby achieving a more dramatic effect. In the entire construction, Adam largely continued the original building plan of Brettingham, even if only two of the original four side wings were built.

Despite this setback, Brettingham received an order from his most distinguished customer to date. Eduard August, Duke of York and Albany , brother of the British King George III. , commissioned Brettingham to build a large townhouse on Pall Mall . The building known as York House that Brettingham built was built on the principles of a Palladian house. Similar to the Norfolk House, the representative rooms were located around a large staircase and in principle it was only a modification of this building. Since a member of the British royal family was its resident, this building was one of the highlights in Brettingham's career. It is also one of the last great houses Brettingham saw completion. Brettingham died in 1769. In 1780 the York House was rebuilt in the classical style by Robert Adams.

Aftermath

During his long career, Brettingham did much to popularize the building principles of Palladianism. His customers included the Duke of York not only a member of the British royal family, but also at least 21 members of the British aristocracy. The fact that his name is largely unknown today is partly due to the fact that the country houses he designed were heavily influenced by the architects Kent and Burlington. Unlike his contemporary Giacomo Leoni , he did not develop his own, recognizable style. Ultimately, he and most of his contemporary architects were outshone by the buildings of Robert Adam. After Adam Kedleston Hall had been completed, he replaced James Paine as an architect at Nostell Priory, Alnwick Castle and Syon House . Adam and Paine nevertheless remained friends, while nothing is known about Brettingham's relationship with his colleagues.

Brettingham's main contribution to the history of architecture is probably his influence on the design of the great London townhouses with their restrained exterior facades and their reception rooms, both functional and luxurious. They allowed guests to be entertained on a lavish scale that is barely comprehensible today. These palaces, anachronistic from today's point of view, have either been destroyed or converted for other purposes, are not accessible to the general public and are therefore unknown. Better known, however, are the buildings that Brettingham was responsible for remodeling. For this reason, Brettingham is now more known as a modifier than a builder of country houses.

There is no doubt that Brettingham was very successful professionally during his lifetime. Robert Adam estimated that Brettingham gave his son Matthew around £ 15,000 for his Grand Tour of Europe - an enormous sum for the time. Part of the sum was likely to be used to purchase statues in Italy to furnish Holkham Hall. The monumental country estate, which has survived to this day and whose design cannot really be attributed to Brettingham, is now the building in the context of which Brettingham is most frequently mentioned.

literature

• Mark Girouard: Life in the English Country House , Yale University Press, 1978, ISBN 0-300-02273-5 .
• Gervase Jackson-Stops: The Country House in Perspective , Pavilion Books, 1990, ISBN 1-85145-383-0 .
• D. Howell, "Matthew Brettingham and the County of Norfolk", Norfolk Archeology 33, 1964, Part III.
• Robert Harling: Historic Houses , Conde Nast Publications, 1969
• Nigel Nicolson: Great Houses of Britain , George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd, 1965, ISBN 0-600-01651-X .
• The National Trust: Kedleston Hall , 1997
• Leo Schmidt et al. a. (Ed.): "Holkham", Prestel, 2005, ISBN 3-7913-3414-X

Web links

• Holkham Hall , English language website
• Kedleston Hall , English language website