Matthew Brettingham: Encyclopedia II - Matthew Brettingham - The London House

Matthew Brettingham - The London House

From 1747, Brettingham had begun to operate from London as well as Norwich. This period marks a turning point in his career, as he was now no longer designing country houses and farm buildings just for the local aristocrats and the Norfolk gentry, but for the greater aristocracy based in London.

One of Brettingham's greatest solo commissions came when he was asked to designed a town house for the Duke of Norfolk in St. James's Square, London. Completed in 1756, this mansion was from the exterior similar to many of the great palazzi in Italian cities: bland and featureless, the piano nobile distinguishable only by its tall pedimented windows. This arrangement, devoid of pilasters and a pediment giving prominence to the central bays at roof height, was initially too severe for the English taste, even by fashionable Palladian standards of the day. Early critics declared the design "insipid".

However, the interior design of Norfolk House was to define the London town house for the next century, with a circuit of reception rooms around a grand staircase, the staircase hall replacing the Italian traditional inner courtyard or two-storey hall. This arrangement of salons allowed guests at large parties to circulate, having been received at the head of the staircase, without doubling back on arriving guests. The second advantage was that while each room had access to the next, it also had access to the central stairs, thus allowing only one or two rooms to be used at a time for smaller functions. Previously guests in London houses had had to reach the principal salon through a long enfilade of minor reception rooms. In this square and compact way, Brettingham came close to recreating the layout of an original Palladian Villa. He transformed what Palladio had conceived of as a country retreat into a London mansion appropriate for the lifestyle of the British aristocracy with its reversal of the usual Italian domestic pattern of a large palazzo in town, and a smaller villa in the country. As happened so often in Brettingham's career, Robert Adam later developed this design concept further, and was credited with the success. However, Brettingham's plan for Norfolk House was to serve as the prototype for many London mansions over the following few decades.

Lord Egremont, for whom Brettingham was working in the country at Petworth, also gave Brettingham another opportunity to design a grandiose London mansion — the Egremont family's town house. Begun in 1759, this Palladian palace, known at the time as Egremont House or more modestly as "94 Piccadilly", which also has an entrance facade in St. James's Square, is one of the few of the great London town houses still standing. It later became the home of Lord Palmerston, then The Naval & Military Club, and is as of 2005 in the process of conversion to a luxury hotel.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The London House", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki