Charles Robert Cockerell

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Charles Robert Cockerell

Charles Robert Cockerell (portrait by Ingres, 1817)
Born 27 April 1788(1788-04-27)
London
Died 17 September 1863(1863-09-17)
13 Chester Terrace, Regent's Park, London
Nationality English
Awards Royal Gold Medal (1848)
Work
Buildings Ashmolean Museum

Charles Robert Cockerell (1788 – 1863) was an English architect, archaeologist, and writer.

Contents

[edit] Life

Charles Robert Cockerell was educated at Westminster School from 1802.[1] From the age of sixteen, he trained in the architectural practice of his father, Samuel Pepys Cockerell who held the post of surveyor to the East India House, and to several London estates. [2]. From 1809 to 1810 Cockerell became an assistant to Robert Smirke,[3] helping in the rebuilding the Covent Garden Theatre, the forerunner of today's Royal Opera House). On the 14th April 1810 he set off on the Grand Tour.[4] Due to the Napoleonic Wars much of Europe was closed to the British, so he headed for Cadiz, Malta and Constantinople (Istanbul); from there he went to Troy, finally arriving in Athens, Greece by January 1811.[5] In April 1811 he was in Aegina where he helped excavate the Temple of Aphaea (which he called the Temple of Jupiter),[6] finding fallen fragmentary pediment sculptures (these are now in Germany).

On his return to England he set up as an architect on his own account, although sharing his father’s office and staff in Saville Row. [2]

In 1819 he was appointed surveyor to St. Paul's Cathedral, where his works included the replacement, in 1821, of the ball and cross on the dome. [2]

In 1833, following the resignation of Sir John Soane, he became surveyor to the Bank of England, and made additions to its London building, as well as designing branch offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, and Plymouth. [2]

He was elected an Associate of the Royal 'Academy in 1829, and an academician in 1837. In 1840, he was appointed Professor of Architecture at the Academy, following the death of William Wilkins.[2] He won the first Royal Gold Medal for architecture in 1848 and became president of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1860.

His exhibits at the Royal Academy included reconstructions of ancient Rome and Athens and a capriccio entitled "Tribute to the Memory of Sir Christopher Wren, being a Collection of his Principal Works”; these became well known through published engravings [2]

As an archaeologist, Cockerell is remembered for removing the reliefs from the temple of Apollo at Bassae, near Phigalia, which are now in the British Museum. Replicas of these reliefs were included in the frieze of the library of the Travellers Club, of which Charles Robert Cockerell was a founding committee member in 1819.

With Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Thomas Leverton Donaldson, Cockerell was also a member of the committee formed in 1836 to determine whether the Elgin Marbles and other Greek statuary in the British Museum had originally been coloured (see Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects for 1842).

The Royal Academy of Arts composed a brief commemorative biography of Cockerell, including the following sentiment which speaks to his great work as a student of architecture:

At the heart of Cockerell's emotional experience of the power of the antique to fire the imagination lay an extraordinary visual sensitivity to the mass and volume of the components of architecture, which for him were never mere abstract, weightless forms or quotations borrowed from the past, but acted together as a constantly renewable expression of man's innate need to create beauty on earth.His second son Frederick Pepys Cockerell was also an architect.

[edit] Published works[7]

  • Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-17 the Journal of C.R. Cockerell R.A., S.P. Cockerell Ed 1903
  • Progetto di collccazione delle statue antiche esisenti nella Galleria di frienza che rappresentano la Favola di Niobe, Firenza 1816
  • 'Le Statue della Favola di Niobe dell' Imp.eR. Galleria di Firenza situate nella primitiva loro disposizione da C.R. Cockerell, Firenza 1818
  • On the Aegina Marbles, Journal of Science and the Arts, VI 327-31
  • On the Labyrinth of Crete, in Travels in Various Countries, Robert Walpole Ed 2 vols, 1817 and 1820 vol. II Pages 402-9
  • An Account of Hanover Chapel, in Regent Street, in The Public Buildings of London, J. Britton & A.C. Pugin 2 vols, 1825-28 vol. II pages 276-82
  • The Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Agrigentum, supplement to Stuart & Revetts Antiquities of Athens, 1829
  • The Pediment Sculptures of the Parthenon, as part VI of A Description of the Collection of Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, 1830
  • Plan and Section of the New Bank of England Dividend, Pay and Warrant Offices and Accountant's Drawing Office 1835
  • The Architectural Works of William of Wykeham, Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute at Winchester, 1845
  • Ancient Sculptures in Lincoln Cathedral, in Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute, 1850
  • Iconography of the West Front of Wells Cathedral, with an appendix on the Sculptures of other Mediaeval Churches in England, 1851
  • Illustrations, Architectural and Pictorial of the Genius of M.A. Buonarroti with descriptions of the plates by C.R. Cockerell, Canina 1857
  • Statement by Mr Cockerell on the Wellington Monument Competition, The Builder XV p. 427, 1857
  • Address, Royal Institute of British Architects, Session, 1859–60, 111-13, 1859
  • On the Painting of the Ancients, in the Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, XXII p42-44 & 88-91, 1859
  • Presidential Address, Royal Institute of British Architects, Session, 1861–62, 1860
  • The Temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae, 1860
  • Architectural Accessories of Monumental Sculpture, in the Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, XXIV p333-6, 1861
  • A Descriptive Account of the Sculptures of the West Front of Wells Cathedral photographed for the Architectural Photographic Association, 1862

[edit] Works

[edit] Gallery of architectural works

  • Entrance portico, Ashmolean Museum

  • Taylor Institute, with Ashmolean Museum behind

  • Main Hall, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Internal door, Main Hall, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Organ platform, Main Hall, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Detail of floor, Main Hall, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Organ, Main Hall, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Court room, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Court room, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Chandelier, Main Hall, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

  • Bank of England, Liverpool

  • Bank of England building, Manchester

  • Holy Trinity Hotwells, Bristol

  • Old Schools, Harrow School

  • The St David's Building at the University of Wales, Lampeter]]

  • St. Mary's Banbury

  • Scottish National Monument, Edinburgh, with William Henry Playfair, unfinished

  • Library, Bowood House

  • The Chapel, Killerton

  • Former Liverpool and London Insurance Office, Liverpool

[edit] References

  1. ^ page 4, The Life and Work of C.R. Cockerell, David Watkin, 1974, Zwemmer Ltd, ISBN 0-302-02571-5
  2. ^ a b c d e f The Late Mr Charles Robert Cockerell, R.A.,, Architect. 21. 1863. 
  3. ^ page 5, The Life and Work of C.R. Cockerell, David Watkin, 1974, Zwemmer Ltd, ISBN 0-302-02571-5
  4. ^ page 6, The Life and Work of C.R. Cockerell, David Watkin, 1974, Zwemmer Ltd, ISBN 0-302-02571-5
  5. ^ page 7, The Life and Work of C.R. Cockerell, David Watkin, 1974, Zwemmer Ltd, ISBN 0-302-02571-5
  6. ^ page 9, The Life and Work of C.R. Cockerell, David Watkin, 1974, Zwemmer Ltd, ISBN 0-302-02571-5
  7. ^ pages 255-256, The Life and Works of C.R. Cockerell, David Watkin, 1974, A. Zwemmer Ltd
  8. ^ "CCockerell, Charles Robert". Irish Architectural Archive. http://www.dia.ie/architects/view/1086. 
  9. ^ Walter Ison (1978). The Georgian buildings of Bristol. Kingsmead Press. pp. 88–89. ISBN 0901571881. 
  10. ^ pages 183 to 196, chapter XI 'The Path to Greatness: Cambridge University Library' in David Watkins: The Life and Work of C.R. Cockerell, 1974, Zwemmer
  11. ^ Walter Ison (1978). The Georgian buildings of Bristol. Kingsmead Press. p. 33. ISBN 0901571881. 

[edit] External links

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