page_title: Architecture of London
section_title: Stuart London: Inigo Jones and the Rise of Classicism (1603–1666)
hierarchical_section_title: Architecture of London / Stuart London: Inigo Jones and the Rise of Classicism (1603–1666)
caption_attribution_description: St Paul, Covent Garden (1631-8) by Inigo Jones.
context_page_description: London is the largest and capital city of England and the United Kingdom. Founded as the ancient city of Londinium in the first century CE by the Romans as capital of the Roman province of Britannia, London has been an inhabited settlement almost continuously since. After the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, the layout of the Roman settlement became the approximate blueprint of the Saxon and medieval city. This ancient core of London is known as the City of London with Westminster, the ancient centre of political power in London, lying to the west. Relatively few structures survive from London's medieval past due to the city's near-total destruction in the Great Fire of 1666, but notable survivors include the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, Guildhall, St James's Palace, Lambeth Palace and a handful of scattered Tudor survivals. After the Great Fire, London was transformed as it was rebuilt and greatly modernised under the direction of the Baroque architect Sir Christopher Wren, with the new Baroque St Paul's Cathedral as its centrepiece.
context_section_description: The early Stuart period – the period before the outbreak of the English Civil War – is significant in the history of London's architecture as it saw the late arrival of the classical style, a century after the style's initial reemergence in Italy in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The pre-eminent architect in this architectural milestone was Inigo Jones, who was appointed Surveyor of the King's Works in 1615. Having travelled around Italy and owning a copy of I quattro libri dell'architettura by Andrea Palladio, Jones was one of the first English architects to be firmly influenced by classical architecture, both of classical antiquity and the revival of the style epitomised by the work of Italian architect Andrea Palladio his strongest influence. His first completed major work in inner London was Banqueting House, Whitehall (1622), an extension to the mostly medieval Palace of Whitehall, with a Palladian portland stone facade and a fine painted ceiling by the famous Flemish painter Rubens. As the first truly classical building in London – a then primitive predominantly timber-framed medieval city – it is an extremely significant building in the history of London's Architecture, described by Eric de Mare as.
  "an architectural innovation that must have startled Londoners with its sophisticated Palladian Masonry, for its main façades containing rhythmical rows of tall windows, carved decorations and classical pilasters, all in mathematically, carefully proportioned precision, must have seemed to them like a stage set than a building."
  
  Another royal commission Queen's House, Greenwich was completed in 1633 and again shows Jones's purist Palladian style that did not mirror the exuberant Baroque which was then fashionable in mainland Europe. But perhaps Jones' most significant architectural commission was the redevelopment of Covent Garden in West London. In 1630 Jones was commissioned by the Earl of Bedford to redevelop the area in the west of the city with fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Between 1630 and 1633 Jones designed and constructed London's first modern square; a classical style piazza lined with colonnaded terraced houses and the Church of St Paul on the Western side; the first church in London built in a classical style notable for its monumental tuscan portico. The piazza became a blueprint for the fashionable squares built across the West End of London in the Georgian era and the Church of St Paul was an architectural blueprint for the baroque city churches built by Wren after the Great Fire of London. The outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 greatly interrupted building activity in England and after the parliamentarian victory Jones was heavily fined due to his close connections to Charles I. He later died in poverty in 1652. His London works the Banqueting House, Queen's House, St Paul's Covent Garden and Queen's Chapel all survive to this day. Lindsey House (1640) on Lincolns Inn Fields, a very early Palladian townhouse, is also possibly by Jones. Despite his short architectural career and few surviving works, Jones's introduction of classical architecture to England is one of the great milestones of English architectural history.
caption: St Paul's, Covent Garden (1633) Inigo Jones, London's first classical church and the centre piece of Jones's Covent Garden piazza.
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