Christopher Wren (October 20th 1632, East Knoyle - February 25th 1723, Hampton Court) is a scientist and British architect of the 17th century, famous for its role in the rebuilding of London after the large fire of 1666. He is the son of Christopher Wren and Mary Cox. Wren is known in particular for the design of the Cathédrale Saint-Paul of London, one of the rare cathedrals built in England after the medieval period and the only traditional cathedral and Baroque in the country.

Years of training

Christopher Wren is born in 1632 in the Wiltshire where his/her father is clergyman. In 1634, this last is seen offering the post of senior of Windsor, hitherto occupied by his/her brother Matthew Wren who has just been appointed bishop of Hereford. During its childhood, Christopher will be playmate of the prince de Galles Charles Ier.

To the nine years age, it is sent to the Westminster School of London. The Wren family, from the convinced royalists, suffers from some difficulties during the disturbed time which starts, that of the English civil war. Matthew Wren, then bishop of Ely is imprisoned eight years with the Tour of London. His/her father himself is obliged to leave Windsor to take refuge with Bristol, but, when Christopher are eleven years old, his/her older sister Marie with the mathematician William Holder and the Wren family comes to settle in Bletchingham in the Oxfordshire, at Holder. William Holder is then the tutor of Christopher which he encourages to discover the Astronomie.

The scientist

In 1646, to leaving the Westminster School , Wren does not enter at once to the university. During three years following, during which some claim that its health is precarious, he assist the doctor Charles Scarborough, the future royal doctor, in various anatomical studies, and also make, for its own account, of mathematical work on the Sundial, a model of the Solar system where he puts at work his scientific knowledge as well as his artistic aptitudes.

Wren enters to the Wadham College to Oxford the June 25th 1649 and receives its license the March 18th 1651 and its control in 1653. He is elected Fellow university All Souls the same year and saw in his buildings until in 1657. He continues his experiments in Anatomie, drawing sketches of the human brain for the Willis' S Cerebri anatome , a famous anatomy directed by Thomas Willis and which will be published in 1664, making the demonstration of a blood Transfusion between two dogs. He at that time shows an inventiveness overflowing in a great number of fields.

He is then named professor of astronomy at the university of Gresham to London in 1657. He had begun observations of the planet Saturn starting from 1652 with an aim of explaining his strange appearance. He exposes his assumptions in his paper Of corpore saturni when Christiaan Huygens presents its theory on the Saturn's rings. Wren recognizes immediately that this theory is more satisfactory than his and does not publish.

Wren belongs to a scientific newsgroup of the university of Gresham which, in 1660, organizes formal weekly meetings, and it plays an undeniable part in the genesis of what will become the Royal Society. Its great diversity of interests involves multiple exchanges of ideas between scientists and its conferences are meetings which precede those of Royal Society. The minutes of the first formal meeting of this Company indicate besides:

Memorandum November 28th, 1660. The following people, according to the practice of the majority of them, met in the university of Gresham to hear the conference of Mr. Wren, namely: Lord Brouncker, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, to sir Paule Neile, DR. Wilkins, DR. Goddard, DR. Petit, Mr. Ball, Mr. Rooke, Mr. Wren, Mr. Hill. And after the conference finished, they were withdrawn, like habit, to discuss.

Wren is thus one of the founding members and he will be the president of 1680 with 1682. It becomes, in 1661, professor in Oxford, holder of the pulpit savilienne of astronomy, posts that it will preserve until in 1673. It is at that time that it produces its more important contributions to mathematics. Newton, however miserly of compliments, affirms in its Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica that Wren is, with John Wallis and Christiaan Huygens, among the largest mathematicians of its time. In 1662, this group of distinguished gentlemen receives a royal charter of the hands of Charles II and the “royal Company of London for the promotion of natural knowledge” ( The Royal Society off London for the Promotion off Natural Knowledge ) is founded.

The architect

There is no certainty on the origin of the interest of Wren for architecture, although it is known that during his period 1646-49, it made research on the manner of defending the cities and of strengthening the ports. It read certainly, whereas it was student in Oxford, “Of Structured” of Vitruve. In 1661 it is invited to work with the fortifications of the port of Tangier and, although it declined this offer, it is interesting to note that on this date, it is regarded as somebody who can direct an architectural project of such an importance. In 1663, Christopher Wren visits Rome where it carries out a complete study of the Théâtre of Marcellus, working so much on the ruins of the theater than on the drawings showing it in its original form. This work will have deep repercussions in the architectural designs of Wren and the influence of the theater is clearly obvious in its first achievements. A stay with Paris, in 1665, to escape the Plague which prevails in the English capital, also leaves its mark on the future architect of London, particularly after its visits with the churches of the Sorbonne and the Invalides.

In 1663, it builds the vault of the university of Pembroke with Cambridge, missionné by his uncle then bishop of Ely. The same year, it submits to the royal Company a proposal for a construction for the Sheldonian Theater in Oxford, a building from which erection begins in 1664 and who is the first of his projects comprising a dome. Wren the mathematician became Wren the architect. It continues in 1668 with the vault of Emmanuel College in Cambridge and the Garden Quadrangle of Trinity College with Oxford.

The reconstructor of London

But, the special occasions to prove reliable of Master-architect comes when it is necessary to carry out the rebuilding of London after the Grand fire of 1666. Named Police chief for the rebuilding of the town of London ( To commission off for Rebuilding the City London ) in this same year, it takes a reading of the zone destroyed by the fire with the assistance of three land-surveyors, one being Robert Hooke. Wren redraws the plan of the whole city, far-sighted of broad avenues radiating since a central space, but the owners of the grounds will ruin the application of this master line. There directs also the rebuilding of 51 churches, but, in spite of the heaviness of the load, remains titular of its pulpit of astronomy in Oxford. It associates collaborations of many artists such as the sculptors Grinling Gibbons, Pierre van Dievoet or Arnold Quellin.

In 1669, Wren is named Surveyor off St Paul' S Cathedral . It had already been implied in the repair work of the old cathedral in 1663 and quite naturally this station returns to him since it became Surveyor-General off the King' S Works , this same year. This official situation also enables him to think of the marriage and he marries Faith Coghill, a common life which will last unfortunately only six years, his wife dying in September 1675, little time after having given rise to their second child. In 1677, Wren marries, in second weddings, Jane Fitzwilliam, but this one dies of tuberculosis in 1679 after him to have given two new children.

Wren is especially known today like the architect of the Cathédrale Saint-Paul of London. In May 1666, little before the large fire which will devastate London in September and the cathedral in particular, it is charged to study its replacement, because it is in very bad condition. Its first project is refused by the Conseil of the City of London ( London City Council ) because it is considered that it misses size and Wren then presents in 1674 a second project, a plan accompanied by a model (preserved today at the museum of South Kensington), which is rejected by the clergy because its design is inspired too much by the ancient Greek architecture what is regarded as inappropriate for a Christian church. In spite of the dramas of its personal life, at that time, Wren goes back to work and produces a third project in the shape of cross Latin and surmounted of a broad dome. It is the latter which is at the base of the current construction, but Wren which is not satisfied with its original design and obtains the royal permission to modify it, will do it throughout work which will last thirty-five years. Old of forty-three years at the time of the beginning of work, he did not hope to see the turn-key building, but its remarkable longevity, he will die at ninety years, will enable him to see its philosopher's stone finished twelve years before its death.

This same year 1675, it is missionné by the king Charles II to build the royal Observatoire of Greenwich, for John Flamsteed which has just been named first Royal Astronome of England . But the royal treasure is not as well as possible and one asks Wren to show economy. Rather than to make astronomical observations, this center is intended to carry out research on the problem of the Calcul of longitude, its resolution being able to offer to England an important advantage in the conquest of the seas.

It catches a cooling and dies in 1723. It is buried in the cathedral Saint-Paul, the March 5th in the southern wing of the chorus, east coast. Inside the cathedral, an inscription which is devoted to him known as: “Lector, if monumentum requiris, circumspice” ( You who lily this inscription, if you seek his tomb, looks around you ). Christopher Wren had been made knight in 1673 and was member of the Parliament of 1685 to 1688 and 1702 to 1705.

Principal work

Vaults

  • Vault of the university of Pembroke (Cambridge)
  • Vault of the university Emmanuel (Cambridge)
  • catholic Vault of the palate of Whitehall

Churches

Always visible

  • church Saint-Andrew by the Wardrobe, London
  • Saint-Andrew church, Holborn, London
  • church Saint-Anne and St Agnes, Gresham Street, London
  • church Saint-Simpleton Fink, Threadneedle Street, London
  • church Saint-Simpleton Paul' S Wharf, Queen Victoria Street, London
  • church Saint-Attaches, Fleet Street, London
  • church Saint-Clement Danes, Strand, Westminster
  • church Saint-Clement Eastcheap, London
  • Saint-Dunstan church in the East, London
  • church Saint-Edmund the King, Lombard Street, London
  • church Saint-James Garlickhythe, Garlick Hill, London
  • church Saint-James' S Piccadilly, Westminster
  • church Saint-Lawrence Jewry, London
  • church Saint-Magnus Martyr, Lower Thames Street, London
  • church Saint-Margaret Pattens, London
  • Saint-Margaret church, Lothbury, London
  • church Saint Martin's day Ludgate, London
  • church Saint-Mary Abchurch, London
  • church Saint-Mary Aldermanbury, London
  • church Saint-Mary-At-Hill, Thames Street, London
  • church Saint-Mary-the-Bow, Cheapside, London
  • church Saint-Michael Royal Bucket elevator, Hill College, London
  • Saint-Michael church, Cornhill, London ( tower and upper half off hand building )
  • Abbaye Saint-Nicholas Sticks, London
  • Cathédrale Saint-Paul of London
  • church Saint-Peter upon Cornhill, Cornhill, London
  • church Saint-Stephen Walbrook, London
  • church Saint-Vedast alias Foster, Foster Lane, London
  • church Ingestre, Staffordshire

Destroyed

  • All Hallows the Great, Lombard Street, London
  • All Hallows, Bread Street, London
  • All Hallows, Lombard Street, London
  • Christ Church Newgate, Newgate Street, London
  • Saint-Alban church, Wood Street, London
  • church Saint-Anne' S Church, Soho
  • Saint-Antholin church, Watling Street, London
  • church Saint-Augustine with St Faith, Watling Street, London
  • church Saint-Bartholomew-by-tea-Exchange, Exchange, London
  • church Saint-Simpleton, Gracechurch Street, London
  • church Saint-Christopher-the-Stocks, Threadneedle Street, London
  • church Saint-Dionis Backchurch, Fenchurch Street, London
  • Saint-George church, Botolph Lane, London
  • church Saint-Mary Aldermary, Bow Lane, London
  • church Saint-Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street, London
  • church Saint-Mary Somerset, Thames Street, London
  • Saint-Matthew church, Friday Street, London
  • church Saint-Michael Queenhithe, Upper Thames Street, London
  • Saint-Michael church, Crooked Lane, London
  • Saint-Michael church, Wood Street, London
  • Saint-Mildred church, Bread Street, London
  • Saint-Mildred church, Poultry, London
  • church Saint-Olave Old Jewry, London
  • church Saint-Stephen Coleman, Coleman Street, London
  • church Saint-Swithin London Stone, Canon Street, London

Palate, parts of pageantry, offices governmental, monuments, etc

  • Palate of Winchester, Winchester
  • Apartment of the Queen and garden in terrace, Whitehall De luxe hotel
  • Modernization of the Palate of Hampton Court
  • Rebuilding of the Palate of Short Kensington
  • House, Windsor
  • The Custom House, London
  • The Navy Office, Seething Lane, London
  • Guard House, Castle of Windsor
  • The Monument, Fish Street Hill, London

Hospital

  • the royal Hospital of Chelsea
  • the Hospital of Greenwich or royal Hospital of the Navy

University and scientific buildings

  • Eton College, Buckinghamshire
  • School of Christ' S Hospital, London
  • School St John Moore, Appleby, Leicestershire
  • College off William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, the United States
  • Garden Quadrangle, Trinity College, Oxford
  • Williamson Building of the Queen' S College, Oxford
  • the Library of the cathedral of Lincoln, Lincoln
  • the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge
  • the royal Observatory of Greenwich, Greenwich

Theaters

External bonds

  • anatomical Drawing of Wren
  • Dr. James Campbell' S Research one Wren (in English)
  • Page on Wren of L ''' Encyclopedia Britannica '' (in English)

May 20th 1663 -->

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