Richard Phené Spiers (1838 – 3 October 1916

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

) was an English architect and author. He occupied a unique position amongst the English architects of the latter half of the 19th century, his long mastership of the architectural school at the Royal Academy of Arts having given him the opportunity of moulding and shaping the minds of more than a generation of students. Spiers wrote most of the articles dealing with architecture for the 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.

Biography

Phené Spiers was educated in the engineering department of King's College London, and proceeded thence to the atelier of Charles-Auguste Questel at the

École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Scienc ...

, Paris, for upwards of three years, a method of study rare for an architectural student in those days. On his return he won the gold medal and travelling scholarship of the Royal Academy, and in 1865 the Soane medal of the R.I.B.A. In 1871, after he had worked in the offices of Sir Digby Wyatt and

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

, he gained second premium with a spirited design (showing a good deal of the

Neo-Grec Néo-Grec was a Neoclassical Revival style of the mid-to-late 19th century that was popularized in architecture, the decorative arts, and in painting during France's Second Empire, or the reign of Napoleon III (1852–1870). The Néo-Grec v ...

feeling consequent on his French training) for the new Criterion Theatre, London, and in the same year he submitted a design in a competition for Holloway Sanatorium. His work of about this period included Lord Monkswell's house, Chelsea, and the home of

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which is now known as

Chateau Impney Chateau Impney Hotel & Exhibition Centre is a Grade II* listed 19th-century house built in the style of an elaborate French château near Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire, England. Of the large mansions in Worcestershire supported by industrial fo ...

in Droitwich Spa. Phene Spiers travelled in France, Spain, Egypt, Syria and the East, and besides his record of more purely architectural data, he made many water-colour sketches showing much talent and facility. He was a frequent exhibitor at various galleries, and a good specimen of his art — the

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...

Hampton Court Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chie ...

- is in the

Victoria and Albert museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

. His works include new edition of James Fergusson's ''History of Architecture'' and the further volumes on Indian and Eastern art; ''Architectural Drawing''; ''The Architecture of Greece and Rome'' (jointly with W. J. Anderson); ''The Mosque at Damascus''; and the articles on

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and

Roman architecture Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome ...

in Dr.

Russell Sturgis Russell Sturgis (; October 16, 1836 – February 11, 1909) was an American architect and art critic of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870. Sturgis was born in Baltimore Count ...

's ''Dictionary of Architecture'', besides an edition of Pugin's ''Normandy''. The position to which his erudition and ability entitled him was fully recognized in other countries as well as his own, as is shown by his election to membership of many foreign societies in France, Spain and America.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spiers, Richard Phene 1838 births 1916 deaths Architects from London English architecture writers Alumni of King's College London École des Beaux-Arts alumni Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools Architecture academics