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For a detailed summary of Robert Hooke's architectural career see:
The Walpole Society published an article by Marjorie Batten in 1936-37 on 'The Architecture of Dr Robert Hooke FRS' (Batten, 1936).
Only a few buildings by Hooke are thought to exist today, including:
Other buildings by Hooke have since been demolished, including:
The architectural historian Giles Worsley has suggested that, on the basis of personal and professional links and stylistic analogies, Hooke might have been the architect of various other major houses, the responsibility for the design of which has always been problematic, including Petworth and Boughton. (Worsley 2004).
Hooke's Hospital of Bethlehem [Bedlam] at Moorfields, London: seen from the north. (Image 1)
The task of leading the rebuilding of London after the fire of 1666 was handed to a committee of six men. Three represented the King, of whom the best known is Sir Christopher Wren, and three represented the City of London, including Hooke.
In the aftermath of the fire, private land was taken by the City for new and widened streets, new markets, wharves alongside the Fleet River, and quays and wharves along the northern bank of the Thames. The amount of compensation paid by the City to owners of property depended on the location of the site and the area of ground lost. Hooke worked on the measuring and staking out of widened streets and new building foundations, mediating subsequent property disputes, and writing certification of the areas of ground taken away. It is estimated that he dealt with about 3,000 of the 8,394 foundations recorded by the City treasurer, and about half of the areas of ground taken away for streets and other new works.
In the next phase of the reconstruction process, Wren and Hooke together designed and supervised the building of many of the new properties. Wren is usually credited every time, but in some cases Hooke took the lead. One example is the Monument. Erected in Fish Street Hill, close to the source of the fire in Pudding Lane, this 202ft column is now thought to be principally the work of Hooke, signed off by Wren (Walker, 2011).
Lisa Jardine (Jardine 2003) states that Hooke's 1672-83 diary records his visits to about thirty of the London churches then being rebuilt after the Great Fire, and adds, "In many cases these visits are sufficiently numerous to suggest that, even if he was not the design architect, he nevertheless played a significant role in their final built form". Anthony Geraghty, who catalogued the Wren papers at All Souls College, Oxford (Geraghty, 2007), suggests that Hooke's duties within Wren's office have been exaggerated, but his analysis is based upon the authorship of the drawings rather than overall supervision of the rebuilding, and it is noteworthy that he sometimes quotes Hooke's diary in relation to designs drawn by somebody else, such as St Peter, Cornhill.
In the past, Wren has usually been credited with the rebuilding of all of these churches. It is certainly true that he led and supervised the campaign but Paul Jeffery suggests that "Wren's contribution to the rebuilding [of] the parish churches in terms of design was numerically modest, with Hooke having the greater part of the task and the greater number now to his credit" (Jeffery 1996, p.66). It now seems likely that Hooke made a major contribution to the following at least:
This document summarises a property dispute between Will Sanders, a draper, and John Rowley, a skinner. The pair had once shared a house and shop on Ludgate Hill, one of the areas destroyed by the fire. Sanders no longer wanted Rowley to occupy the second story of his house but agreed to allot him a space next door. Hooke and his fellow surveyor John Oliver approved of this plan, signing the document at lower right. (Image 7)
St Benet's, Paul's Wharf. The church avoided major Victorian remodelling, and was one of only four City churches to escape bombing in 1939-45. (Image 8)
Although he had no formal role (Geraghty, 2007), Hooke seems to have assisted Wren on the construction of the new St Paul's Cathedral.
Wren's son and biographer says of his father in Parentalia, that "He raised another structure over the first cupola, a cone of brick, so as to support a stone lantern of an elegant figure. ... And he covered and hid out of sight the brick cone with another cupola of timber and lead".
On 5th June 1675, Hooke records in his diary, "At Sir Chr. Wren ... He promised Fitch at Paulls. He was making up my principle about arches and altered his module by it". (Heyman 2006)
A pen and ink study of about 1690, drawn by Wren, which is now in the British Museum (not the one illustrated here), shows that the design for the brick cone duly employed "a formula devised by Robert Hooke in about 1671 for calculating the curve of a parabolic dome and reducing its thickness. Hooke had explored this curve, the three-dimensional equivalent of the 'hanging chain', or catenary arch: the shape of a weighted chain which, when inverted, produces the ideal profile for a self-supporting arch." (Designs for the Dome, c.1687-1708)
Construction of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, showing the internal brick cone between two cupolas (Image 9)
Memorial to Hooke in the crypt of the cathedral, next to the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren (Image 10). The quotation around the edge is from Micrographia.
Sources for the images on this page are given below. Many more may be found on the web, including on Flickr and Geograph.
The photographs on Flickr by Ian Stubbs, in particular, include several of prints depicting Montague House in London, now replaced by the present British Museum building.
Montague House, London, rebuilt after a fire. (Image 11).
So far as we know, all of the images reproduced on this page are in the public domain. We shall immediately take down on demand any that are still in copyright.
Page last amended 14th December 2024