Thoughts on the Architecture

Walbrook & the City of London
After the bombing of World War Two St Stephen was
restored and the interior was redesigned to express
contemporary worship. Most of the fittings had been burnt
or destroyed and it meant that seating and altar
arrangements could be thought out again. Thus it was that
Henry Moore was persuaded to design and carve a central
altar using travertine marble from the quarry near Rome
used by Michelangelo. Kneelers were designed by Patrick
Heron and new candlesticks designed and made by Hans
Coper. In 1987 the building was rededicated.
Now Walbrook is to be given three new buildings
designed to meet the needs of today’s work force. These
will certainly impact upon those buildings which occupy
sites next to or near to them. St Stephen is flanked by on the
north by Dances’ Mansion House and on its eastern and
southern sides the Rothschild’s site.
The possibility of Rem Koolhaas designing a building with
these two iconic buildings nearby gives much hope. The
City of London is an organic city responding well to the
ever changing needs of those who have their lives shaped
by their work environment on a daily basis and never
afraid to take chances, as happened by employing
Christopher Wren after the Great Fire.
By using modern materials and modern design a new office
building can compliment a classical building thus bringing
the best of both worlds into contact with one another.
Thoughts on the Architecture
by the Ven. Peter Delaney, Rector
Walbrook is named after the source of water which brought
life to the area, The Walbrook, a stream on which the
Roman soldiers built a series of baths and a temple to
Mithras.
It was on his site that the first Christians built a church 700
AD. Eventually a monastery built a foundation begun by the
cup bearer to Henry 1st, built almost certainly over the
temple to eradicate the pagan site this church was begun in
possibly 1085 AD?
In 1428 a new church was to be built twenty meters east of
the original on land given by Robert Chichley a member of
the Grocers Company. We know exactly how big it was,
208 feet by 66 feet. It had a cloister and was one of the
hundred churches in the City of London. Interestingly
enough at the east end of St Stephen was a street,
Bearbidder Lane, the source of the Great Plague of 1665.
The only doctor who remained with his patients Nathaniel
Hodge has a plaque in the present church!
Then early on Sunday 2nd September 1666 a fire broke out
in Pudding Lane which was to change the face of London. It
was of course the Great Fire of London. Within 24 hours St
Stephen Walbrook was burnt to the ground an end to 500
years of a building on the site.
Some saw the fire as a judgement on the City, some saw it
as a human error some saw it as a major opportunity to
begin a vision of a new utopia for the people of London.
King Charles II set up a Royal Commission and work began
on a new city. It was to be built upon the medieval pattern
of streets but it would be built of brick and stone. The city
churches and St Paul’s were mostly funded by harnessing
the tax on imported coal; By 1700 London was a new city
rising like a phoenix from the ashes. One of the central
figures in that redevelopment process was Christopher
Wren.
RECOMMENDED DONATION £1.00
From 1660 until, the early 18th century Wren dominated
London’s architecture in a way unthinkable today. In an
age when there were no professional architects, rather a
tradition of gentlemen amateurs his name is synonymous
with English Renaissance architecture, in particular the
city’s buildings’ of faith. He was multi talented a professor
of astronomy a geometrician fascinated by the visual
world, inventive and he loved problem solving. Nothing
could not be done!
It stands as an enduring example of how resilient the City is
to change. Wren had to design a new building
encompassing the latest in classical renaissance
architecture on a very limited site. His answer was to focus
on creating maximum space for the interior leaving the
exterior to rub up against the large number of buildings
around it. The Second World War shows how many of
Wren’s churches had simple exteriors because they could
not be seen. Wrens solution was to experiment with a dome
completely new to the City and the first to be built in
England and the precursor for St Paul’s dome to be built
after St Stephen.
The problem lay in how to support this dome and to
provide uncluttered space with sight lines from all over the
building and support the dome structure. But the structure
meant that the entrance had to be at ground level and the
church built above the crypt. By creating a spacious
staircase entrance lobby, adjacent to the tower Wren
enabled the visitor to ascend into the church h building
creating a new dynamic of changing perspectives on each
ascent of the staircase. It is not until you are at the top that
the whole vista unfolds before you.
As a member of the King’s Commission Wren set his mind
to create a new architecture for faith, the first since the
Reformation. He was responsible for the recreation of fifty
one of the new buildings Robert Hooke and Nicholas
Hawksmoor were his assistants.
His buildings mirrored the theology of his day, the Church
of England as a reformed Catholic church reflected the
English attempt to keep the main threads of sacramental
life but with a new twist of being able to hear and see
everything which went on in the church building. Wren
designed and built auditory churches, where no member
of the community would be more than thirty feet from the
action.
Some see St Stephen Walbrook as Wren’s major city
church after the Cathedral. It was a difficult church to
rebuild. Some of the crypt remained and the Walbrook
River caused water problems for any designer. It was one
of his earliest works built from 1672 – 1679. It is certain that
he himself was responsible for the design and the build. It
cost £7,672, a large amount of money then
Wren originally allowed for a new portico to the north of
the building to be built over the Old Stocks Market but
George Dance’s Mansion House was built instead. We
know how pleased everyone was at the building for on 27th
May 1679 the Vestry gave a dinner for the architect,
masons and joiners as the church was ready for use. The
steeple was not built until; 1713 -1717, some think by
Hawksmoor. Amongst those buried in St Stephen are John
Vanburgh and other notables, including de Courcey Laffan
who helped Baron Courbetin revive the Olympic Games.
Wren himself lived at 15 Walbrook and was a parishioner
as the church was being rebuilt.
I like the story of Lord Burlington, the great English
traveller and entrepeneaur meeting the Italian sculptor and
architect Canova in Rome who when they talked about the
City of London mentioned Wren’s St Paul’s but did not
know St Stephen Walbrook. Canova told Lord Burlington
to return to London and to seek out St Stephen for, “we
have nothing to touch it Rome”, Sir John Summerson has
described the church as ‘one of the few church, ‘in which
the genius of Wren shines in full splendour.’ Nicholas
Pevsner lists the church as one of the ten most important
buildings in England.