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Alfred Waterhouse’s Romanesque ‘Temple of Nature’: The Natural History Museum, London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

J. B. Bullen
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Extract

The Natural History Museum in London is a spectacular building in many senses (Fig. 1). As one of the outstanding landmarks of high Victorian architecture, it was designed to draw attention both to itself and to its contents. No other museum building in Britain adopted a Romanesque style on this scale; no other building had used terracotta in such a rich and decorative manner, and no other building (other than, perhaps, the University Museum, Oxford) so curiously employed external decoration to illustrate its internal function. It was calculated to appeal to a wide public and its animal sculpture was selfconsciously didactic in the way in which a number of contemporary museum buildings were created to a programme. Planned as a showcase for the nation’s imperial scientific achievements, its appearance was strongly ecclesiastical. When it opened in 1881, The Times leader called it a ‘true Temple of Nature’, which, the writer said, demonstrated ‘the Beauty of Holiness’. But for many visitors in 1881 Nature had abandoned the temple for wilder places; she had bloodied her claws, and the beauty of holiness had been replaced by the more severe, mechanistic principles formulated by Charles Darwin.

The concept of a large museum of natural history was the inspiration of the great naturalist Richard Owen. It was also the crowning achievement of his lifetime in science. The ‘Temple of Nature’ that Alfred Waterhouse built for him embodied Owen’s belief that the history of the natural world was not a matter of randomness and chance but the creation of a transcendent presence. In other words, the Natural History Museum is the expression of an ideology, and its shape, size, position, style and decoration are charged with legible meanings. Some of those meanings are readily interpreted, others less so, and although the building history of the museum has been well documented, many questions remain. Why, for example, was Waterhouse chosen as its architect? What spurred him on to use terracotta in such an original way? And above all why did he risk the unusual Romanesque style? The choice of Romanesque for such a building, although it was later imitated elsewhere, was highly original. But that choice was conditioned by a substantial web of aesthetic, social, and political factors. The Natural History Museum was not just Waterhouse’s creation; it was very much the product of its time. It was born of national and local politics; it was shaped by Owen’s unusual position in the scientific world, and it was an expression of Waterhouse’s passion for early medieval architecture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 49 , 2006 , pp. 257 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2006

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References

Notes

1 Smirke’s British Museum (1847) was designed in a Greek style to house the Elgin Marbles, and Deane and Woodward’s Oxford Museum (1855-59) employed the sculptural expertise of the O’Shea brothers to decorate the exterior with flora and fauna. Phillip Kent points out how many of the Natural History museums of the second half of the nineteenth century employed Romanesque revival models for their decoration. See ‘Survival of the Fittest: The Romanesque Revival, Natural Selection, and Nineteenth Century Natural History Museums’, Fabrications, 11 (2000), pp. 1–25.

2 The Times, 18 April 1881, p. 9. According to Nature, 23 (1881), p. 549, it was George Augustus Sala who first used the phrase ‘Temple of Nature’ with reference to the museum.

3 Most notably by Sheppard, F. H. W. in ‘Natural History Museum’, in Survey of London: The Museums Area of South Kensington and Westminster (London, 1975), pp. 201–13 Google Scholar; Olley, John and Wilson, Caroline, ‘The Natural History Museum’, in Timeless Architecture, ed. Cruikshank, Dan (London, 1971), pp. 47–67 Google Scholar; Girouard, Mark, Alfred Waterhouse and the Natural History Museum (New Haven and London, 1981)Google Scholar; Cunningham, Colin and Waterhouse, Prudence, Alfred Waterhouse 1830–1905: biography of a practice (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar; and Yanni, Carla, ‘Nature in Conflict’, in Nature’s museums: Victorian science and the architecture of display (London, 1999), pp. 112–46.Google Scholar

4 It was not, however, the first. That honour belongs to James Renwick’s Smithsonian Institute Building, Washington DC (1846-51) (although this might be considered neo-Norman rather then neo-Romanesque). After Waterhouse we find Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mould’s the American Museum of Natural History, New York (1872-77), William F. Smith’s Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii (1889), William Kemp’s Technological Museum (later Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences), Sydney, Australia (1891-92), and Charles Harrison Townsend’s Horniman Museum, Forest Hill, London (1897). See Kent, Phillip, ‘Survival of the Fittest: the Romanesque Revival, Natural Selection, and Nineteenth Century Natural History Museums’, Fabrications, 11:1 (2000), pp. 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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6 Owen, quoted in Rupke, Nicholas A., Richard Owen: Victorian Naturalist (New Haven, 1994), p. 35.Google Scholar

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11 See Sheppard, ‘Natural History Museum’, p. 203.

12 Archives of the Public Record Office (henceforth PRO), Work 17/16/2, p. 2.

13 PRO, Work 17/16/2, p. 15.

14 Building News, 11 (1864), p. 297.

15 Palmerston, quoted by O’Connell, James in his ‘Natural History of Architecture’, London Quarterly Review, 13 (1859-60), pp. 31–62 Google Scholar (p. 57). See also Brownlee, David B., ‘The “regular mongrel affair”: G.G. Scott’s design for the government offices’, Architectural History, 28 (1985), pp. 159–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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20 Reference to this exchange was recorded in BM Committee c.10.911, and a letter from Cole was printed in The Times, 18 December 1865.

21 BM Committee, 29 July 1865, c.10857.

22 See Ames, Winslow, Prince Albert and Victorian Taste (London, 1967). p. 129 Google Scholar; and Olley and Wilson, ‘The Natural History Museum’, p. 56.

23 BM Committee, 11 November 1865, c.10885.

24 His death was reported to the British Museum Committee on 9 December 1865: BM Committee c.10899.

25 Ruskin to his father John James Ruskin, December 1863. Works, 18, p. lxxv.

26 Diary entry for 14 October 1864. Matthew, H. C. G., The Gladstone Diaries, VI (Oxford, 1978), p. 306.Google Scholar

27 Builder, 11 (1865), pp. 135–37.

28 Waterhouse’s role in this competition is dealt with substantially by Brownlee, David B. in The Law Courts. The Architecture of George Edmund Street (Cambridge, Mass., New York and London), p. 83 ff.Google Scholar

29 The Times, 11 February 1865, p. 7.

30 See Cunningham and Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse 1830–1905, p. 41.

31 See Gaskell, Elizabeth to Ruskin, , February 1865, in The Lettters of Mrs Gaskell, ed. Chappie, J. A. V. (Manchester, 1966)Google Scholar, letter 559. She also wrote to Lord Houghton, Richard Monkton Milnes, in similar terms. See Further letters of Mrs. Gaskell, ed. J. A. V. Chappie and Alan Shelston (Manchester, 2000), pp. 268–69.

32 For 1855, see Works, 36, p. 479, and for 1859, see Works, 16, p. lxv. In 1865 Ruskin wrote to her saying that both he and his mother had hugely enjoyed Cranford; see Works, 36, p. 479.

33 Ruskin, Works, 35, pp. 503–04.

34 In 1871 Cowper became one of the original trustees for Ruskin’s Guild of St George.

35 Ruskin replied almost immediately to Gaskell, including a positive response from Cowper. See Chappie and Shelston, Further Letters, pp. 269–70.

36 Works, xix, p. 23.

37 BM Committee, 9 December 1865, C10899.

38 BM Sub Committee Building and Sub Committee Natural History, 17 January 1866, SC 1407–1409; 14 February 1866, PRO, Work 17/16/2, p. 11; and 23 February 1866, PRO, Work 1/81, p. 74; BM Standing Committee, 10 March 1866, SC 10944.

39 6 March 1866, PRO, Work 1/81, p. 110; 7 March 1866, PRO, Work 17/16/2, p. 31; and 2 August 1869, PRO, Work 17/16/2, p. 88.

40 Officers’ Report 20 April 1866: CE5/77 P. 3516.

41 BM Sub Committee on Building and Sub Committee on Natural History, 25 March 1868, SC 1473–1474.

42 Waterhouse to Office of Work, 4 May 1868, PRO, Work 17/16/2.

43 Ibid.

44 The plans for this and those for subsequent years are contained in PRO, Work 17/16/2.

45 Girouard, Alfred Waterhouse, pp. 25–33.

46 Based, as Carla Yanni suggests, on ideas contained in Androuet du Cerceau’s Les Trois livres d’architecture (1559); Yanni, ‘Nature in Conflict’, p. 121.

47 See Blau, Eve, Ruskin’s Gothic: the Architecture of Deane and Woodward 1845–1861 (New Jersey, 1982), pp. 56–57.Google Scholar

48 Lecturing in the Index Museum, he said in 1873, would be ‘very much like speaking in the nave of a cathedral’; PRO, Work DF 930/1.

49 Olley and Wilson, ‘The Natural History Museum’, p. 50.

50 See notes 110 and 115 below.

51 Ruskin, Works, 10, p. 253, and 9, p. 47.

52 See Bullen, J. B., Byzantium rediscovered (London, 2003), pp. 151–53.Google Scholar

53 I am grateful to John Hughes who pointed this out.

54 Waterhouse Sketchbook: ‘Scrapbook 2; 1851–3: drawing dated 21 Sep. 1851’ (private collection). See also Cunningham, Colin, The Terracotta Designs of Alfred Waterhouse (London, 2001), p. 12, n. 9.Google Scholar

55 See Jolly, Robert, ‘Edmund Sharpe and the “Pot” Churches’, Architectural Review, 146 (1969), pp. 427–31.Google Scholar

56 See Bullen, Byzantium rediscovered, pp. 144–45.

57 Curran, Kathleen, The Romanesque Revival (University Park, Pennsylvania, 2003), pp. 214 ff.Google Scholar

58 Stuart Allen Smith points out that between 1857 and 1871 he made four trips to Germany, five trips to Italy, and seven to France. See Smith, Stuart Allen, ‘Alfred Waterhouse’, in Seven Victorian Architects, ed. Fawcett, Jane (London, 1976), p. 112.Google Scholar

59 Waterhouse Presentation Book, 20 May 1853, p. iv; 25 July 1853, p. xv; and 29 August 1853, p. xxiii.

60 Waterhouse Sketchbook no. n (private collection), 17 August 1857, p. 36. The drawing is on p. 17.

61 Mark Girouard, Alfred Waterhouse, p. 42, touches on the connexion between the museum and Rhenish churches.

62 Waterhouse Sketchbook no. iv (private collection), 17 September 1861, pp. 13–15.

63 Ibid., 19 September 1861, pp. 30 and 32.

64 Ibid., 20 September 1861, pp. 35–38.

65 ‘Some details of the enrichment of the new Museum of Natural History (South Kensington) modelled by C. Dujardin for A. Waterhouse Esq. A.R.A.’ (c. 1874–97). This album, which was in the possession of a French collector for some twenty years, has recently (2004) been acquired by the Natural History Museum.

66 Waterhouse Sketchbook no. IV (private collection), 21 September 1861, pp. 39–45.

67 Ibid., 21 September 1861, pp. 44–45; and Sketchbook no. v (private collection), 6 September 1871.

68 Cunningham, Colin, The Terracotta Designs of Alfred Waterhouse (London, 1992), p. 40 n.Google Scholar

69 In A.W., ‘Byzantine Decorative Colouring’, The Builder, 20 (1862), p. 230.Google Scholar

70 It appeared on 29 March, in the same issue as contained Fowke’s new exhibition building.

71 A.W. [Alfred Waterhouse?] ‘Byzantine Decorative Colouring’, p. 230.

72 Goth, A [Scott, Gilbert], The Builder, 20 (1862), p. 250.Google Scholar

73 See, for example, Cunningham and Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse 1830–1905, p. 72.

74 Kallenbach, Georg Gottfried and Schmitt, Jacob, Die christliche Kirchen-Baukunst des Abendhndes von ihren Anfängen bis zur vollendeten Durchbildung des Spitzbogen-styls (Halle, 1850).Google Scholar

75 Puttrich, Ludwig, Systematische Darstellung der Entwickelung der Baukunst in den obersachsischen Landern von 10.-15. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1852).Google Scholar

76 Moller, Georg, Denkmäler der Deutschen Baukunst (Darmstadt, 1831).Google Scholar

77 Johann Sulpiz Melchior Dominicus Boisserée, Denkmale der Baukunst vom 7ten bis zum 13ten Jahrhundert am Nieder-Rhein (Munich, 1833)Google Scholar; this was translated as Monuments d’architecture du septième au treizième siècles dans les contrées du Rhin inférieur (Munich and Stuttgart, 1842).

78 Letter from Edmund Sharpe to William Whewell, Coblenz, 2 July 1833, Trinity College, Cambridge, R.6.116.

79 Plate 49.

80 Plate 8.

81 Plate 30.

82 Plate 10.

83 Girouard, Alfred Waterhouse, p. 42.

84 Ludwig, , Puttrich, , Die goldene Pforte der Domkirche zu Freiberg (Leipzig, 1836).Google Scholar

85 Waterhouse Sketchbook no. I (private collection), p. 49. Waterhouse visited the exhibition and noted the words from ‘The Architectural Exhibition’, The Guardian, 16 January 1856, p. 47.

86 Hitchcock, Henry Russell, ‘Victorian Monuments of Commerce’, Architectural Review, 105 (1949), p. 66.Google Scholar

87 The Crown Life Building was demolished in 1866.

88 Brooks, Michael W., John Ruskin and Victorian Architecture (London, 1989), pp. 180–91 Google Scholar, supplies a wide range of examples in this style.

89 Owen quoted in Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 13.

90 Henry Cole’s diary quoted in Sheppard, F. H. W., Survey of London, vol. 34, The Museums Area of South Kensington and Westminster (London, 1975), p. 207.Google Scholar

91 Elcho quoted in Sheppard (1975), p. 209.

92 Fergusson, James, ‘The New Law Courts’, Macmillan’s Magazine, 25 (1872), 254.Google Scholar

93 Henry Cole, letter to The Times, 3 February 1872, reprinted in Fifty Years of Public Works of Sir Henry Cole K.C.B. … accounted for in his deeds, speech and writings, ed. A. S. Cole and H. L. Cole, 2 vols (London, 1884), n, p. 306.

94 Owen, Richard Rev., The Life of Richard Owen, II (London, 1894), pp. 52–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

95 The Builder said that, ‘the whole effect is very different from that of Gothic, to the English eye’. ‘Architecture of the Day’, The Builder, 16 (1858), p. 842.

96 Rossetti said that it was ‘the most perfect piece of civil architecture of the new school’ and added: ‘I never cease to look at it with delight’; Ford Maddox Brown thought that it was ‘the most exquisite piece of architecture I have seen in England’, and Thomas Woolner said that it was ‘brilliant in effect and original’. Quoted in Frederick O’Dwyer, The Architecture of Deane and Woodward (Cork, 1997), pp. 314–15.

97 Waterhouse Sketchbook no. II (private collection), September 1858, pp. 131–36.

98 Waterhouse Sketchbook no. I (private collection), 19 September 1855, pp. 15–16.

99 Waterhouse Sketchbook no. II (private collection), August 1857, p. 57.

100 Scott, George Gilbert, ‘Materials of Buildings’, in Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, 2nd edn (London, 1858), p. 105.Google Scholar

101 See Beatty, C. J. P. (ed.), The Architectural Notebook of Thomas Hardy (Dorchester, 1966), p. 6 Google Scholar. The essay no longer exists.

102 The details of making and installing the terracotta are given in Olley and Wilson, ‘The Natural History-Museum’, pp. 51ff., and in Stratton, Michael, The Terracotta Revival (London, 1993), pp. 70ft.Google Scholar

103 ‘Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. I And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. I Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, IO house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the portter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel’ (Jeremiah, 18: 3–6).

104 Natural History Museum archive, DF 930/1/23: Owen reporting to the Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), 20 November 1873.

105 These are reproduced in Cunningham (2001). In his youth Waterhouse had wanted to train as an artist, but his pragmatic Quaker family set him on the road to architecture. His sketchbooks are a testimony to his natural ability as a fine draughtsman.

106 This seems to have been toppled at the time of the Second World War. See Cunningham (2001), p. 15.

107 ‘Architecture and Public Works’, in The British Almanac and Companion (1879), p. 154.

108 “The Natural History Museum’, The Architect, 25 (1881), p. 302.

109 Ruskin to Henry Swan, curator of the Sheffield Museum, 15 November 1883 (EL3.R596 MSi), and 8 June 1882 (EL3.R596 MSi), both in the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia.

110 Daily News, 6 September 1879, p. 2.

111 The British Almanac and Companion (1880), p. 160.

112 Nature, 23 (1881), p. 55.

113 Waterhouse to Jones about the issue of a lecture theatre in the museum, 25 August 1873: Natural History Museum archive, DF 930/1.

114 Daily News, 6 September 1879, p. 2.

115 Bell, Ingress, “The New Natural History Museum—l’, The Magazine of Art, 4 (1881), p. 360.Google Scholar