“London’s standard”

Abstract

Christopher Wren believed in the timelessness of the classical Orders of architecture. In direct reaction to the buildings of Paris and Versailles, where he observed in 1665 that “works of Filgrand, and little Knacks are in great Vogue,” he argued that the Orders should not be subject to overembellishment and what he saw as the whims of fashion. “Architecture aims at Eternity,” was the way he put it at the opening of the first of his “Tracts” on architecture, continuing that “therefore the only Thing uncapable of Modes and Fashions in its Principals” are “the Orders.” But this understanding did not stop him from adding decoration that helped represent a building’s particular function and meaning. In so doing, he drew on symbolism common in two emblematic traditions, also with their origins in antiquity, namely the heraldic and the alchemical. Heraldry emphasizes continuity and lineage, and alchemy transformation and rebirth, all potent themes following a period of civil upheavals. Although Wren’s use of heraldry is a neglected aspect of his work, it is frequently present and sometimes dominant. It can be seen as a key way in which he symbolized his belief in the enduring qualities of British monarchy, especially its restorative powers following the king’s troubled relationship with the City of London during the traumas of the civil war and Commonwealth. The opposition of the City to the Stuart Crown during the civil war, when the corporate body sided with the Roundheads, had all too recently been a major factor in the monarch’s downfall. The City remained fiercely jealous of its longstanding privileges in relation to the Crown. Wren was a staunch believer in the importance of monarchy as an institution, as might be expected of someone occupying the office of Royal Surveyor. His unbuilt mausoleum for Charles I, proposed for Windsor