After the Fire: London Churches in the Age of Wren, Hooke, Hawksmoor and Gibbs

(Hardback)

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Description

London was but is no more!' In these words diarist John Evelyn summed up the destruction wreaked by the Great Fire that swept through the City of London in 1666. The losses included St Paul's Cathedral and eight-seven parish churches (as well as at least thirteen thousand houses). But London rose from the ashes, more beautiful - and certainly more spectacular - than ever before. The catastrophe offered a unique opportunity to Christopher Wren and his colleagues - including Robert Hooke and Nicholas Hawksmoor - who, in the course of remarkably few years, rebuilt St Paul's and fifty-one other London churches in a dramatic new style inspired by the European Baroque. Forty years after the Fire, the Fifty New Churches Act of 1710 gave Nicholas Hawksmoor the opportunity to build breathtaking (and controversial) new churches including St Anne's Limehouse, Christ Church Spitalfields and St George's Bloomsbury. But by the 1720s the pendulum was already swinging away from Wren and Hawksmoor's Baroque towards the less extravagant Palladian style. It was the more restrained churches built by James Gibbs (including St Martin-in the-Fields) that were to provide the prototype for churches the world over - but especially in North America - for the next hundred years. In After the Fire, celebrated photographer and architectural historian Angelo Hornak explores, with the help of his own stunning photographs, the churches built in London during the sixty years that followed the Great Fire.

Reviews

"I will be returning to this book often, not just to enjoy the wonderful images, but also to use it as a reference book on the London churches. Whether you are interested in the history of London, baroque architecture or specifically Wren, this book will not disappoint you."

* Context: , Journal of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation *

"Of all the books published to coincide with the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, there can be few more visually stunning than Angelo Hornaks After the Fire."

* The Burlington Magazine *

"For those who may not wish to negotiate the irregular opening hours, Angelo Hornak'sAfter the Fire transports you to each of the surviving Wren churches with masterly photographs of their best perspectives and sharp close-ups of their salient details...This handsome book captures the visual drama at the heart of what proved to be an unparalleled flowering of English architecture....a dizzy kaleidoscopic treat."

* World of Interiors *

"Lavish book with impressive photography and unfussy architectural text...Pull up a pew and savour it."

* Irish Times *

As Londons remarkable 18^thcentury skyline has since been subsumed by giant shards, walkie talkies and cheese graterswe might reflect on how much of the city we have unwittingly allowed to become invisible since the fire. This book allows us to see it again and what a visually glorious place itmust once have been.

* House and Garden *

"The perfect Christmas present."

* Skyline - Friends of the City Churches *

"The buildings that transformed Londons skyline in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, described and beautifully photographed by the author."

* Country Life *

Author Bio

Angelo Hornak is the author of Balloon over Britain (1991) and London from the Thames (1999) and has provided the photographs for many books, including histories of St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey and the cathedrals of Canterbury, Winchester, Wells, Exeter and Ely. He lives in London.