Today is the day when the extraordinary Christopher Wren died. Feb. 25, 1723.
Wren was a leading mathematician, astronomer and architect of his time.
Born in 1632, Wren had a breadth of interests worthy of a Leonardo. His ideas and inventions include instruments for surveying, measuring angles and writing in the dark, as well as different machines to lift water and create perspective drawings, ways of finding longitude and distance at sea, military devices for defending cities, and designs for submarines and telescopes. He also discussed the grinding of conical lenses and mirrors and devised a blood-transfusion method, demonstrating it with two dogs.
Wren became a professor of astronomy at age 25. He solved Kepler's Problem on cutting a semicircle, independently proved Kepler's third law, and formulated the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction.
Wren was a founding member of the Royal Society in 1660 and later served as its president. But his interest in physics and engineering soon led him to architecture, and he designed buildings at Cambridge and Oxford, where he was teaching.
He submitted plans for a classical addition to the decrepit, decaying, dilapidated Gothic St. Paul's Cathedral in London in May 1666. His plan was accepted just six days before the Great Fire of London in September of that year. The conflagration burned nearly all of the ancient city center, including 87 churches, 44 livery halls and 13,200 houses -- but took only nine lives. The fire left most of the cathedral in charred ruins, but plans proceeded to restore it. Then a further collapse in 1668 made it clear that a completely new St. Paul's would have to be built.
Wren submitted three new designs before King Charles II and his commissioners finally agreed to one. The foundation stone was laid in 1675, and after 33 years a-building, Wren's architect son (also named Christopher) placed the last stone on the topmost spire above the lantern above the dome in 1708.
Within days of the fire, Wren had also submitted to the king a complete urban design to replace the twisting, meandering and often narrow lanes of the City of London with a plan of baroque splendor, including wide, radial avenues and broad vistas. It was not to be, as merchants and property owners did not want to have their lots realigned. They set about rebuilding as soon as the ashes had cooled and -- with just a little widening and straightening here and there -- rebuilt the city along its medieval streets.
As surveyor general of the Royal Works, Wren designed many buildings in the post-fire years, including the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, hospitals in Chelsea and Greenwich and 51 churches -- 23 of which survive (some with significant post-Blitz rebuilding). He was knighted in 1673, but for all this work, he was paid only 200 pounds a year ($56,000 in today’s money) and was summarily dismissed in 1718 amid a dispute over the speed of rebuilding.
Wren died at age 91 at his home in Hampton Court after returning from a visit to St. Paul's. He is buried in the crypt of St. Paul's, beneath a plaque that in Latin acknowledges him as "builder of this church and this city…. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.”
Wren was a leading mathematician, astronomer and architect of his time.
Born in 1632, Wren had a breadth of interests worthy of a Leonardo. His ideas and inventions include instruments for surveying, measuring angles and writing in the dark, as well as different machines to lift water and create perspective drawings, ways of finding longitude and distance at sea, military devices for defending cities, and designs for submarines and telescopes. He also discussed the grinding of conical lenses and mirrors and devised a blood-transfusion method, demonstrating it with two dogs.
Wren became a professor of astronomy at age 25. He solved Kepler's Problem on cutting a semicircle, independently proved Kepler's third law, and formulated the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction.
Wren was a founding member of the Royal Society in 1660 and later served as its president. But his interest in physics and engineering soon led him to architecture, and he designed buildings at Cambridge and Oxford, where he was teaching.
He submitted plans for a classical addition to the decrepit, decaying, dilapidated Gothic St. Paul's Cathedral in London in May 1666. His plan was accepted just six days before the Great Fire of London in September of that year. The conflagration burned nearly all of the ancient city center, including 87 churches, 44 livery halls and 13,200 houses -- but took only nine lives. The fire left most of the cathedral in charred ruins, but plans proceeded to restore it. Then a further collapse in 1668 made it clear that a completely new St. Paul's would have to be built.
Wren submitted three new designs before King Charles II and his commissioners finally agreed to one. The foundation stone was laid in 1675, and after 33 years a-building, Wren's architect son (also named Christopher) placed the last stone on the topmost spire above the lantern above the dome in 1708.
Within days of the fire, Wren had also submitted to the king a complete urban design to replace the twisting, meandering and often narrow lanes of the City of London with a plan of baroque splendor, including wide, radial avenues and broad vistas. It was not to be, as merchants and property owners did not want to have their lots realigned. They set about rebuilding as soon as the ashes had cooled and -- with just a little widening and straightening here and there -- rebuilt the city along its medieval streets.
As surveyor general of the Royal Works, Wren designed many buildings in the post-fire years, including the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, hospitals in Chelsea and Greenwich and 51 churches -- 23 of which survive (some with significant post-Blitz rebuilding). He was knighted in 1673, but for all this work, he was paid only 200 pounds a year ($56,000 in today’s money) and was summarily dismissed in 1718 amid a dispute over the speed of rebuilding.
Wren died at age 91 at his home in Hampton Court after returning from a visit to St. Paul's. He is buried in the crypt of St. Paul's, beneath a plaque that in Latin acknowledges him as "builder of this church and this city…. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.”
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