Sir John Newenham SummersonCHCBEFBAFSA (25 November 1904 – 10 November 1992) was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century.[1]
After graduation Summerson worked in several junior roles, most notably in the office of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, but architectural practice was not for him and he became a tutor at the Edinburgh College of Art, School of Architecture in 1929. Hired by the Modern Architectural Research Group (MARS), a think tank founded by a group of modernist architects, he settled back in London, moving on to a job as an assistant editor for the magazine Architect and Building News in 1934.[3] Following the unsuccessful attempts to become a practising architect, and greater success as an architectural journalist, Summerson embarked on his first book, a biography of the architect John Nash (1752–1835). Published in 1935, it was "outstandingly successful".[2]
He continued to write mainly about British architecture, especially that of the Georgian era.[6] His Architecture in Britain: 1530–1830 (1st edition 1953; many subsequent editions) remained a standard work on the subject for students and general readers after his death. The Classical Language of Architecture (1963) is an introduction to the stylistic elements of classical architecture and traces their use and variation in different eras. He also wrote many more specialised works, including books about Inigo Jones and Georgian London (1945) illustrated by Alison Sleigh, as well as The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century (1986), in which he describes Boullée in a distinct positive manner, stating that Boullée was clearly the point of departure for one of the boldest innovators of the century, Claude Nicolas Ledoux. His 1945 book Georgian London was called "a masterpiece of British art history" by Simon Jenkins in a Sunday Times review of the 1988 edition.[7]
Summerson was noted for his somewhat elitist approach, and he was not always a consistent friend of the conservation movement. He was hired by the ESB in Ireland to speak in favour of their demolition of 16 Georgian townhouses in Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin. The doomed terrace, he said, was "simply one damned house after another".[14]
The term Bristol Byzantine, referring to a style influenced by Byzantine and Moorish architecture and applied mainly to warehouses, factories, and other industrial buildings in the city of Bristol, is thought to have been invented by Summerson.[16] He invented the term "prodigy house" for showy Elizabethan and Jacobean courtier houses.[17] He had many notable students including Phoebe Stanton.[18]
Photographs attributed to Summerson are held in the Conway Library whose archive, of primarily architectural images, is being digitised under the wider Courtauld Connects project.[19]
In March 2012, an English Heritageblue plaque commemorating Summerson was erected at his former residence in Chalk Farm, London,[20] where he lived with his wife Elizabeth Hepworth, the sister of Dame Barbara Hepworth, the sculptor, and his three sons.[5]
^Summerson enjoyed his time at the school and the castle itself provoked an early interest in architecture, and a life-long distaste for the Gothic Revival. He described Riber as "an object of indecipherable bastardy – a true monster".[4]
^ abcd"John Newenham Summerson". Watkin, David. The Rise of Architectural History. London: The Architectural Press, 1983, p. 131; Summerson, John. 50 Years of the National Buildings Record, 1941–1991. London: Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1991; Wilson, Colin St. John. Architectural Reflections: Studies in the Philosophy and Practice of Architecture. Boston: Butterworth Architecture, 1992, pp. 26, 87–94, 152–155; [methodology] Howard, Deborah. "Lotz's Text: Its Achievement and Significance." in Lotz, Wolfgang. Architecture in Italy: 1500–1600. Pelican History of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. p, 2; Summerson and Hitchcock: Centenary Essays on Architectural Historiography. New Haven, CT: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale Center for British Art /Yale University Press, 2006; [obituaries:]. Middleton, Robin. Casabella 57 (June 1993): 54–5; Middleton, Robin. "John Summerson." Burlington Magazine 135 (April 1993): 277–9; RIBA Journal 100 (February 1993): 63. 21 February 2018. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
^Brace, Keith (1996). Portrait of Bristol. London: Robert Hale. ISBN0-7091-5435-6.
^Mooney, Barbara Burlison, Prodigy Houses of Virginia: Architecture and the Native Elite, p. 2, 2008, University of Virginia Press; ISBN0813926734, 9780813926735, google books