The Banqueting House in Whitehall, London, was designed by the English architect Inigo Jones in 1619 and was completed in 1622. His design for The Banqueting House, along with ‘The Queens House’ built in 1616, made him one of the most notable architects in the United Kingdom in the early modern period. Jones’s architecture challenged the English and European achievements of his time. The construction of The Banqueting House led to a crucial change in the architectural landscape of London. * During this period of time, the buildings across England were being designed solely around the Gothic and Tudor architectural styles, making The Banqueting House stand out in its surroundings as a leader in neo-classical design. * Alfred Gotch writes, “It had taken more than a hundred years to affect the revolution, and it might have taken longer still, with results far less satisfactory, if it had not been for Inigo Jones.” * As one of the first standing examples of the European style in England, the Banqueting House went on to influence English architecture. * Jones’s version of The Banqueting House, the third to be built on this site, was built to represent the role it was designed for. Though the design of the antecedent Banqueting House’s varied in terms of construction materials, design style and dimensions, they were designed for the same purpose and functions. Between the years of 1581 to 1622, the preceding two structures burnt down in fires, there were different monarchs ruling at the time, but for the royals The Banqueting House was an important structure and was therefore rebuilt regardless of the circumstances, and each time was made to better represent the status of its purpose. This essay will first explore the impact that European architecture had on Inigo Jones, considering the inspiration of different architects and styles that prompted the design of the Banqueting House. Following this there I will analyse the interior and exterior aspects of the Banqueting House, accounting for key architectural design characteristics and features that relate it to the European classical style. To finish, I will explore the impact that the Banqueting House had on architecture in the United Kingdom. Comparing and contrasting his works of the same style and consider the influence it had on other architects around this time making Inigo Jones one of the most significant architects in England.
Inigo Jones was exposed to the European classical style of art and architecture between the years of 1603 and 1615, where he had travelled to Italy on two ‘grand tours’. * He learnt how to draw and studied the state of mind and control of Italian artists through painters, sculptors and architects. Seen in Jones’s first surviving sketches from 1605, he crosses from medieval to the modern, a revolution in architectural vision in which he gained from his travels around Europe. Jones became the Surveyor of the King’s Works in 1615 after being an influential Court architect for some years before, which marked the beginning of his career and lead to him being given the job of designing the Banqueting house. Shortly before being appointed Surveyor of the King’s Works, Jones travelled in and around Italy again in 1613. * Travelling around Rome, Padua, Florence, Vicenza, Genoa and Venice, he was exposed to the classical styles of architecture. Jones shows his close interest in classical architecture in his sketchbook from his travels, paying more attention to Roman antiquity rather than the immerging contemporary styles around Italy. * He studied the work of modern and classical Italian architecture first hand and in text, reading texts such as “De Architecturea” by Vitruvius and Andrea Palladio’s 1570 work “Quattro Libri dell’ Architecttura” *. He studied under the architect and writer Vincenzo Scammozzi, who was a pupil of Andrea Palladio and a student of the principles of Sebastiano Serlio who made the orders of classical architecture significant. In Palladio’s text’s he illustrates model forms of the five Greek and Roman orders, reconstructions of antique temples and a selection of his own architectural designs for palaces and villas*insert example*. Jones visited many of Palladio’s buildings and was inspired by the dimensions and style. Palladio was influenced by equal proportion and perspective, his stylised use of symmetry was then referred to as a Palladianism in the 17th century, characteristics of which can be seen in the form of classical temple architecture of the Romans and Ancient Greeks. ** insert example** His style adhered to the conventions of classical Roman architectural design, dismissing the decorative style characteristic of the Renaissance period and focussing more on mathematical proportions and symmetrical forms. Inigo Jones interest in the European classical style is clear when analysing the interior and exterior form, each aspect of his design mirrors that of the classical style he has witnessed first-hand. The “solid, proportional… masculine and unaffected” * interiors of the Banqueting House shows an interpretation of Vitruvian basilicas, whereas the exterior is more heavily influenced by the style around Italy and Palladio’s style for designs of a space with similar events and occurrences.
Jones tried to impart all the qualities of architecture as he learnt from Vitruvius, to produce mathematical and visual harmony to positively impact the viewer and create a sense of comfort in the space. As the Banqueting House was established for public and private events, welcoming royal ambassadors and putting on masques, some very high profile. The interior of the Banqueting House mirrors the dimensions and style of a Roman meeting hall, more specifically that designed by Italian architect Andrea Palladio. The Banqueting House is a two-story grand room, with the symmetry and proportion of a Roman meeting hall and the dimensions of a double cube. It is twice as long as it is wide or tall, in a simple ratio of 2:1:1. * At one hundred and ten feet long and fifty-five feet in both height and width, his design was then considered a Palladianism. With the point of entry centred on the northern side, and the upper level defined by a gallery around the edges of the room, all the proportions are mathematically related and that hall is symmetrical. Similar to Andrea Palladio’s designs and work on ancient temples, basilicas and Egyptian halls, which housed similar events and functions to the proposed Banqueting House and used similar dimensions. Jones used his understanding of Palladian architecture and geometry, more specifically the cube, as a starting point in his design work. Looking into the simplicity of pure forms and different shapes, researching Platonic cosmology, as he would have studied in Italy during the years of his travels. * As the basis for Platonic order, the cube would have been represented in various texts and sketchbooks of architects such as Palladio, Sebastiano Serlio and Guiliano da Sangallo, which Jones will have studied during his travels. His use of the double cubic form for The Banqueting House shows this interest in shape and order through the influences of Europe.
The interiors main feature is the main chamber; the hall has a gallery around the perimeter, a space the was said to be reserved for musicians, with the Kings throne situated at the southern end of the room. The upper level of the hall houses a balcony and vantage point, and was only accessible by an external staircase which represents the lower status of the space and the intended the guests, because of the lack of an internal staircase. The space left as a double height room shows the hierarchy of between the royals and ambassadors and the civilians above, a space also for the King and his people to admire ‘Rubens ceiling’. The main chamber was originally painted white when construction was completed, contrasting to the interior style of previous architectural movements such as Jacobean, characteristics such as using gold paint to decorate and painting with rich colours. * Sir Peter Paul Rubens, a Flemish artist, was approached to decorate the interior of the Banqueting house and his response was to work on something large scale. ‘Rubens ceiling’, a large set of paintings that covers the entirety of the halls ceiling, a project that started in 1629 and completed in 1635.* The set of nine paintings were installed and separated by thick beams, as each represented a different story in history, and after the installation of the artwork the room was repainted and decorated with gilding.* These nine separate pieces, can be interpreted as different storylines from the Ruling of the King, union of England and Scotland, and the idea of kings as gods on Earth. These large pieces of artwork were installed in a way for the king to could contemplate the art from his throne and, and for it to be the first thing visitors see when they enter the space as it “formed the crowning element of the room” *.
The exterior façade was built using three types of masonry stone; the ground floor uses a warmer toned stone from Oxfordshire and the levels above that use a stone from Northamptonshire in a pinker tone. To highlight the classical features, such as the orders of columns and entablatures of the building, a white Portland stone is used. * The building is rectangular in plan, two storeys in height above a raised basement. As part of the palace of Whitehall, it only had two main elevations facing east and west which use classical architecture features such as Ionic and Composite columns, and Palladian principles of symmetry and proportion. The exterior focuses on balance and purposeful but minimal decoration. The roof is defined by a balustrade, a row of minimally decorated columns that act as a supportive railing. Of the whole façade, the only one feature that is of decorative extravagance is the seven female masks linked by garlands that runs along the upper level windows. They link the decorative features of the Composite, tying the capitals together. Each façade with two rows of seven large windows divided by raised orders, Ionic columns on the lower level and the upper level were flanked by Composite columns, a mixed order of Corinthian and Ionic. The top-level windows are less decorative casements, simply flat and adhering to his exploration of Palladianism symmetry, but are divided by a more decorative order. The Corinthian columns bordering the higher-level windows are of the highest order, symbolising the higher status of the space. The windows on the lower level are alternate between triangular and segmental pediments, divided by the lower order style columns. The middle three windows, specifically on the west elevation, vary from the rest because of the addition of balusters but with this differentiation there is still symmetry on the façade. On both levels, the four columns surrounding the three centre bays differ from the rest, and they are engaged columns that are half embedded to the exterior walls whereas the others are rectangular and flat. At road level, there is a row of small square windows, each centred on the larger windows above. The small size of the windows and the lack of decoration surrounding them indicate that low usage and status of the cellar inside. *
Giving the large range of Inigo Jones’s works, for example, The Queens House, is a great way to analyse his style further. The Queens House 1616 and Somerset House reveal the same influences of Palladianism and the same classical style as the Banqueting House. As a court architect and then Surveyor for the Kings works, his architectural designs for the Queens House were more influenced by rules of classical architecture than by any of his superiors. The Queens House is Jones’s first attempt at Classical architectural design and his first major commission to work with Palladianism. The building is the first standing example of the classical style in England, and what Jones described himself as “his finest example of Palladian design.” * Quoting Pieter van der Merwe’s The Queen’s House Greenwich, he writes “It represents no less than the stylistic point of origin of the great classical buildings of Greenwich that surround it, and of classical architecture in Britain more generally” * Confirming that The Queen’s House is the ‘origin’ of the style in the United Kingdom, and more specifically Greenwich, London. The plan of the Queen’s House resembles an H shape, with two wings linked by a bridge centred between them. Jones was inspired by Guiliano de Sangallo and based the plans on Sangallo’s Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano. Though in comparison, Jones simply took the exterior shape as inspiration, altering the size of the interlinking bridge and changing the interior floor plan. The great hall in the Queen’s House bares resemblance to the main hall in the Banqueting House, featuring the same style of ceiling with the large beams separating the nine painted panels. The Banqueting House consists of a lot of similar characteristics to its predecessor The Queen’s House. Featuring aspects in the design such as pediments around the internal doors, a balcony running along the double height spaces perimeter and a ceiling divided by thick beams. The ceiling is similar to ‘Rubens ceiling’ in the way that the thick beams separate the ceiling into nine panels, which contain paintings of different meanings.
In conclusion, the work of Inigo Jones was influential in the development of architecture in the UK. Jones is one of the most significant architects in history, being credited for having designed the first neo-classical style buildings in the country. He made an impression in England by introducing a new style and paved the way for architects that followed him. Alfred Gotch writes “this [The Banqueting House] is the most important piece of architecture that Jones designed, its only rival being the Queen’s House at Greenwich. Upon these two buildings must his reputation as an architect chiefly rest; but it may rest in security, for they will hold their own with any other buildings of like degree”. Inigo Jones was a revolutionary, the first to introduce Palladianism and establishing this by designing the first two buildings of this type in the United Kingdom. * Suggesting that Inigo Jones was the best architect to pioneer this transition in styles from Gothic and Jacobean to Classical in England.
Originally published 15.10.2019