James Gandon (20 February 1743 – 24 December 1823) was an English architect best known for his work in Ireland during the late 18th century and early 19th century. His better known works include
The Custom House
The Custom House ( ga, Teach an Chustaim) is a neoclassical 18th century building in Dublin, Ireland which houses the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is located on the north bank of the River Liffey, on Custom House Qua ...
and the surrounding
Beresford Place, the
Four Courts
The Four Courts ( ga, Na Ceithre Cúirteanna) is Ireland's most prominent courts building, located on Inns Quay in Dublin. The Four Courts is the principal seat of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and the Dublin Circui ...
and the
King's Inns in Dublin and
Emo Court
Emo Court, located near the village of Emo in County Laois, Ireland, is a large neo-classical mansion. Architectural features of the building include sash-style windows, pavilions, a balustrade, a hipped roof, and large dome.
It was designe ...
in County Laois.
Early life
Gandon was born on 20 February 1742 in New Bond Street, London, at the house of his grandfather Peter Gandon, a French
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
refugee. He was the only son of Peter Gandon (b. 1713), a gunmaker, and Jane Burchall (possibly née Wynne). From 1749 he was educated at Shipley's Drawing Academy where he studied the
classics, mathematics,
arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
and architecture. On leaving the drawing academy he was articled to study architecture in the office of
Sir William Chambers
__NOTOC__
Sir William Chambers (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-Scottish architect, based in London. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy.
Bio ...
. Chambers was an advocate of the
neoclassical evolution of
Palladian architecture, although he later made designs in the
Gothic Revival style. However, it was Chambers's palladian and neoclassical concepts which most influenced the young Gandon.
In 1765, Gandon left William Chambers to begin practice on his own. His first commission was on Sir Samuel Hellier's
estate at
the Wodehouse
The Wodehouse is a grade II* listed English country house near Wombourne, Staffordshire, notable as the family seat of the Georgian landscape designer and musicologist Sir Samuel Hellier and, a century later, Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Helli ...
, near
Wombourne
Wombourne is a large village and civil parish located in the district of South Staffordshire, in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is 4 miles (6 km) south-west of Wolverhampton and just outside the county and conurbation of the W ...
. Gandon's new practice, whilst successful, always remained small. In about 1769 he entered an architectural competition to design the new
Royal Exchange in Dublin. The plan eventually chosen was by
Thomas Cooley. However, Gandon's design came second and brought him to the attention of the politicians who were overseeing the large-scale redevelopment of Dublin, one of the largest cities in Europe at the time.
During the following years in England, Gandon was responsible for the design of the
County Hall in
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...
. Between 1769 and 1771, he collaborated with
John Woolfe
John Woolfe (23 March 1932 – 14 June 1969) was a British racing driver from England, who specialised in sports car racing. He was killed as a result of crashing on the first lap of the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans race, an event which caused the ...
on two additional volumes of
Vitruvius Britannicus
Colen Campbell (15 June 1676 – 13 September 1729) was a pioneering Scottish architect and architectural writer, credited as a founder of the Georgian style. For most of his career, he resided in Italy and England. As well as his architectura ...
, a book of plans and drawings of Palladian revival buildings by such architects as
Inigo Jones and
Colen Campbell. During his English career he was awarded the gold medal for architecture by the
Royal Academy, London in 1768.
In 1771 he was paid five guineas ″To making of a design of a Theater at Wynnstay″ He was also paid nine guineas for giving ″36 Lessons in Architecture″ to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. The Theatre was converted from a huge kitchen which had been built for the stupendous Coming of Age Celebrations of Sir Watkin in that year and was used from 1771 until Sir Watkin died. The British Library has a drawing of the Theatre which was used for an admission ticket for a performance which belonged to King George 111.
Designing the Custom House
In 1780 Gandon declined an invitation from a member of the
Romanov
The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastasia Romanova, was married to ...
family to work in
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
but in 1781, at the age of 38, he accepted an invitation to Ireland from
Lord Carlow and
John Beresford (the Revenue Commissioner for Ireland) to supervise the construction of the new Custom House in Dublin. Thomas Cooley, the original architect on that project, had died and Gandon was chosen to assume complete control. The new Custom House was unpopular with Dublin Corporation and some city merchants who complained that it moved the axis of the city, would leave little room for shipping, and it was being built on what at the time was a swamp. It is said that the Irish people were so opposed to the Custom House and its associated taxes that Beresford had to smuggle Gandon into the country and keep him hidden in his own home for the first three months. The project was eventually completed at a cost of £200,000, an enormous sum at the time.
This conspicuous commission proved to be the turning point in Gandon's career and Dublin was to become Gandon's home and its architecture his ''"raison d'etre"'' for the remainder of his life. He took a house in Mecklenburgh Street (now Railway Street), that he might be near the residence of John Beresford, the main proponent for the development of the city. The city, which in Gandon's lifetime was to grow to become the fifth largest city in Europe, was undergoing vast expansion, mostly following the
Palladian
Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
and
neoclassical designs already popularised in the city by
Edward Lovett Pearce
Sir Edward Lovett Pearce (1699 – 7 December 1733) was an Irish architect, and the chief exponent of Palladianism in Ireland. He is thought to have initially studied as an architect under his father's first cousin, Sir John Vanbrugh. He is be ...
and
Richard Cassels
Richard Cassels (1690 – 1751), also known as Richard Castle, was an architect who ranks with Edward Lovett Pearce as one of the greatest architects working in Ireland in the 18th century. Cassels was born in 1690 in Kassel, Germany. Althou ...
.
The newly formed
Wide Streets Commission
The Wide Streets Commission (officially the Commissioners for making Wide and Convenient Ways, Streets and Passages) was established by an Act of Parliament in 1758, at the request of Dublin Corporation, as a body to govern standards on the layou ...
employed Gandon to design a new
aristocratic
enclave in the vicinity of Mountjoy Square and Gardiner Street. The new
classical terraces of large residences became the
Town house
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...
s of members of the newly built and imposing
Irish Houses of Parliament
Parliament House ( ga, Tithe na Parlaiminte) in Dublin, Ireland, was home to the Parliament of Ireland, and since 1803 has housed the Bank of Ireland. It was the world's first purpose-built bicameral parliament house. It is located at Colleg ...
situated in
College Green College Green or The College Green may refer to:
* College Green, Adelaide outdoor venue at the University of Adelaide
* College Green, Bristol, England
* College Green (Dartmouth College), New Hampshire, primarily known as "the Green"
* College ...
south of the river. Gandon also designed Carlisle Bridge (now
O'Connell Bridge
O'Connell Bridge () is a road bridge spanning the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland, which joins O'Connell Street to D'Olier Street, Westmoreland Street and the Dublin quays, south quays.
History
The original bridge (named ''Carlisle Bridge'' f ...
) over the
River Liffey
The River Liffey ( Irish: ''An Life'', historically ''An Ruirthe(a)ch'') is a river in eastern Ireland that ultimately flows through the centre of Dublin to its mouth within Dublin Bay. Its major tributaries include the River Dodder, the Riv ...
to join the north and south areas of the city.
Other Irish works
Gandon's other works in the city included:
*The
Four Courts
The Four Courts ( ga, Na Ceithre Cúirteanna) is Ireland's most prominent courts building, located on Inns Quay in Dublin. The Four Courts is the principal seat of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and the Dublin Circui ...
of 1786,
*The centre portion of
King's Inns Henrietta Street begun in 1795 and completed in 1816 by his pupil
Henry Aaron Baker,
*The improvement of the Rotunda Assembly rooms 1786.
Gandon's least well known building in Dublin is his
Royal Military Infirmary of 1787 on Infirmary Road. He worked for the Wide Street Commissioners and designed the facades for the shops at ground floor of D'Olier Street, Burgh Quay and some surrounding streets. One of his most prestigious commissions, which came in 1785, was to extend Pearce's monumental Houses of Parliament, for which he built the (well known today) curved screen wall which links his new corinthian portico for the House of Lords facing College Street to Pearce's original building. This building is now the
Bank of Ireland.
His work in Ireland was not confined to Dublin, nor to civic and municipal commissions. In 1784 he designed the new courthouse and Gaol in Broad Street (Demolished) in
Waterford
"Waterford remains the untaken city"
, mapsize = 220px
, pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe
, pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe
, pushpin_relief = 1
, coordinates ...
; and he also worked on many private houses, including
Abbeville, Dublin
Abbeville, formerly Abbeyville House, is an 18th-century country house in the townland of Abbeyville, civil parish of Kinsealy, within the traditional County Dublin, Ireland. It is best known as the home of Charles Haughey during his years as Ta ...
which he designed for
John Beresford in 1792, Emsworth,
Malahide
Malahide ( ; ) is an affluent coastal settlement in Fingal, County Dublin, Ireland, situated north of Dublin city. It has a village centre surrounded by suburban housing estates, with a population of over 17,000.
Malahide Castle dates from th ...
, County Dublin in 1794 for James Woodmason, a London stationer who became involved in banking in Dublin, and Sandymount Park for the painter William Ashford. In
County Laois, he designed
Emo Court
Emo Court, located near the village of Emo in County Laois, Ireland, is a large neo-classical mansion. Architectural features of the building include sash-style windows, pavilions, a balustrade, a hipped roof, and large dome.
It was designe ...
, County Laois in 1790–96 for the
Earl of Portarlington
Earl of Portarlington is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1785 for John Dawson, 1st Earl of Portarlington, who had earlier represented Portarlington in the Irish House of Commons. He was the son of William Dawson, 1st Visco ...
, and also Coolbanagher Church of Ireland Church just outside Emo village.
His town planning work included creating a new setting for the Custom House with a curved terrace of townhouses at Beresfort Place, Dublin, and the New Geneva town in County Waterford which was never completed. He designed a number of buildings including walled gardens, and farm buildings at Carriglass just outside Longford Town.
Criticism and decline
The success of Gandon's designs and commissions were however not reflected in personal popularity: he attracted huge criticism from his enemies. So hated was the taxation symbolised by the Custom House that the
stigma of being its creator was to taint the appreciation of his work throughout his lifetime. It was even claimed that Gandon was designing buildings to boost his self-esteem. In the 1780s, during the construction of the Four Courts, one
broadsheet published daily letters from a correspondent castigating and insulting Gandon and his designs. This further fostered the hate directed against him. In truth Gandon had merely rediscovered what architects from
Vitruvius
Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...
to
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...
believed, which was that the Palladian form was eminently suitable for the design of public buildings where huge civic prestige was required.
In
1798, revolution broke out on the streets of Ireland and Gandon, an unpopular figure, hurriedly fled to London. On returning to Dublin he found a much changed city. The Irish Houses of Parliament, which had inspired the great period of development, were closed. The 1801
Act of Union had placed Ireland directly under rule from London. One by one the Anglo-Irish aristocracy left their fine new town houses in the city. As a direct result Dublin declined from being one of the great cities of Europe.
Gandon had married Eleanor Smullen on 26 July 1770. They had five children, four daughters and a son, James.
Some sources state he was widowed shortly after his invitation to Dublin,
but others state there is evidence of his wife in Dublin for a short time. Gandon died on 24 December 1823
at his home in
Lucan, County Dublin
Lucan ( ; ga, Leamhcán) is a town in Ireland, located 12 km west of Dublin city centre on the River Liffey. It is near the Strawberry Beds and Lucan Weir, and at the confluence of the River Griffeen. It is mostly under the jurisdiction ...
, having spent forty-two years in the city. He was buried in the church-yard of
Drumcondra Church
Drumcondra Church of Ireland is a Church of Ireland church located in Drumcondra, Dublin, previously in the Civil Parish of Clonturk. The church and its churchyard contain memorials to a number of notable historical figures.
History
In 1743 the ...
, in the same grave as his friend the antiquary
Francis Grose
Francis Grose (born before 11 June 1731 – 12 May 1791) was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He produced ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Pr ...
.
[John H. Farrant, 'Grose, Francis (bap. 1731, d. 1791)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2009] It seems that already by the time of his death his reputation was undergoing a re-evaluation, for his tomb-stone reads: – "''Such was the respect in which Gandon was held by his neighbours and friends from around his home in Lucan that they refused carriages and walked the 16 miles to and from Drumcondra on the day of his funeral''."
In the years since his death, Ireland's troubled history has resulted in destruction and damage to much of Gandon's work, especially his interiors. The Custom House was
burnt down in 1921 by the
IRA
Ira or IRA may refer to:
*Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name
*Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name
*Iran, UNDP code IRA
Law
*Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...
during the
War of Independence
This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars). These wars may or may not have been successful in achieving a goal of independence.
List
See also
* Lists of active separatist movements
* List of civil wars
* List o ...
and parts of it were rebuilt using a darker shade of native limestone.
[''Michael Collins: A Life'' by James A. Mackay (), page 199] The Four Courts was shelled by government forces during the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
in 1922 and partly destroyed by a huge explosion. Even though it was later rebuilt, much of Gandon's original work is gone and the interior can today only be appreciated from his original drawings. The wings to the Four Courts were shortened by one bay, in order to widen the roadway, and to permit more lanes of traffic. This alteration seriously damages the original composition. Yet despite this, the stamp of his work is still clearly visible in
Georgian Dublin
''Georgian Dublin'' is a phrase used in terms of the history of Dublin that has two interwoven meanings:
# to describe a historic period in the development of the city of Dublin, Ireland, from 1714 (the beginning of the reign of King George I ...
today.
References
Sources
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gandon, James
1743 births
1823 deaths
18th-century English architects
British people of French descent
Architects from London
Burials at Drumcondra Church Graveyard
Architects from Dublin (city)
People from Lucan, Dublin