John Quinlan Terry
CBE (born 24 July 1937) is a British architect. He was educated at
Bryanston School and the
Architectural Association School of Architecture. He was a pupil of architect
Raymond Erith, with whom he formed the partnership ''Erith & Terry''.
Quinlan Terry is a well-known representative of
New Classical architecture and the favourite architect of
King Charles III.
He has a keen interest in how traditional architecture contributes to the debate on sustainability and has lectured frequently on the subject.
Quinlan Terry continues to practise full time with partners Roger Barrell and Eric Cartwright under the name Quinlan Terry Architects LLP.
Work
In the United Kingdom
Terry works principally in classical
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 ...
architectural styles. The firm, Quinlan Terry Architects LLP, continues the architectural style of the practice started by Raymond Erith in 1928, and specialises in high quality traditional building, mostly in classical idioms. The practice is based in Dedham, Essex, and employs a staff of twelve. A book about the firm's work, written by David Watkin, entitled ''Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry'' (New York: Rizzoli International Publications), was published in 2006.
The first work by Raymond Erith in which Quinlan Terry had a major role was the new house, Kings Waldenbury, Hertfordshire, completed for the Pilkington family in 1971, when new building in a classical manner was deeply unfashionable. During the three-year construction period of the house, Terry kept a diary, published later, in which he bemoaned the modern world and stoically defended his conservative, reformed, evangelical faith.
His design for the 1992 ''Maitland Robinson Library'' at
Downing College,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, won the
Building of the Year Award in 1994. One of his best known works is
Brentwood Cathedral
The Cathedral of St Mary and St Helen is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Brentwood, Essex, England. It is the seat of the Diocese of Brentwood.
History
Brentwood Cathedral began in 1861 as a parish church built in a Gothic style. This relatively s ...
in Essex. This is radical extension of a nineteenth century
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
Gothic revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
church is in the
English Baroque manner owing much to
James Gibbs and
Thomas Archer and makes little or no attempt to be in keeping with the older building. Terry's new work has a
portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cul ...
based on the south portico of
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglicanism, Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London ...
designed by Sir
Christopher Wren. Unusually, all five classical orders of architecture were used and Terry has said in lectures that he views classical architecture as an expression of the divine order.
During the 1980s he was appointed by
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
, then Prime Minister, to renovate the interiors of
10 Downing Street, restored 40 years previously by Raymond Erith, Terry's teacher, after war damage. Terry's work there is more assertive than Erith's. In
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of ...
, he designed Waverton House, where he used the style made popular by
Matthew Brettingham in the late 18th century, featuring a central staircase lit from above, surrounded by rooms on both floors.
In 1989, he designed
a series of three new villas for the
Crown Estate
The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priv ...
Commissioners in Outer Circle in London's
Regent's Park
Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...
. Building in the park was controversial but said to be in the spirit of
the Prince Regent's original though unrealised intentions for the park, which was to contain numerous villas for
Regency courtiers surrounding a new royal palace. Terry's three new villas have near-identical plans, based on
Palladio
Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of t ...
's
Villa Saraceno, but the external elevations vary, showing respectively
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
, Italian Mannerist and muscular
Neo-classical features in the manner of
William Chambers. Six villas were eventually built between 1989 and 2002.
In the mid-1990s, Terry designed the restoration of
St Helen's Bishopsgate, controversially turning the orientation of the medieval church through 90 degrees, moving or removing some fittings, and reworking its previous
Tractarian Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...
layout into a
Georgian stripped-back meeting house plan informed by the precepts of
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
theology, in tune with its current firmly evangelical congregation.
Also in the 1990s, he designed a castle for
David and Frederick Barclay on their private island of
Brecqhou in the Channel Islands.
Terry designed the external envelope of New Margaret Thatcher Infirmary at the
Royal Hospital Chelsea, with Steffian Bradley Architects as the lead consultant and planners for the building; a new Georgian Theatre for Downing College Cambridge; new offices, retail and residential development at 264–267
Tottenham Court Road, London; offices and retail at 22
Baker Street, London; and Queen Mother Square,
Poundbury; and mixed use development
Richmond Riverside.
In the United States
His works in the US include the Abercrombie Residence,
a classical mansion based on
Marble Hill House,
Twickenham, London. Complete with a ''
piano nobile'' approached by an external staircase, it has a pediment supported by
Corinthian columns. The house is constructed of
Kasota limestone, with
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...
limestone dressings.
Appraisal
Terry's architecture has been championed by
David Watkin, who wrote the monograph ''Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry'' (2006), and by
Roger Scruton who called it "one long breath of fresh air" in his ''
Spectator'' article "Hail Quinlan Terry: our greatest living architect".
Quinlan Terry is the single most distinguished and prolific architect at work in the Classical tradition in either Britain or the United States. He has attempted more completely than any other architect in Britain to pull the rug from beneath the false certainties of Modernism.
– David Watkin (2006). ''Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry''
Conversely, Terry has been the subject of considerable criticism. A 2015 article in the
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) ''Journal'' quoted the late architectural historian
Gavin Stamp, author of the ''Piloti'' column in the magazine ''
Private Eye'', in which Stamp derided Terry's work as "stiff, pedantic and uninspiring, classical details stuck on to dull boxes". The cultural critic
Jonathan Meades, in a 2020 article in ''The Critic'', repeated Stamp's strictures and dismissed Scruton's praise, "
manwho had no eye", as "embarrassingly silly"; while
Stephen Bayley is among those who have attacked the close relationship between Terry and the Prince of Wales. In a column in ''The Guardian'' in 2009, Bayley mocked the Prince's circle of architectural advisers as "a coterie of fogeyish misfits, dreamers, forelock-tugging courtiers, DIY specialists, greasy pole-climbers
ndshort-sighted antiquarians", reserving particular scorn for Terry, "a specialist in architectural pastiche
hosemodesty and art are in inverse proportion".
Honours
In 2003 Terry won the Best Modern Classical House 2003, awarded by the British
Georgian Group for
Ferne House in
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
. In 2005 Terry won the 3rd Annual
Driehaus Prize, the most prestigious award for outstanding classical and traditional architects. He holds the Philippe Rothier European Prize for the Reconstruction of the City of Archives d'Architecture Moderne (1982).
He was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
(CBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to classical architecture.
See also
*
New Classical architecture
*
Brentwood Cathedral
The Cathedral of St Mary and St Helen is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Brentwood, Essex, England. It is the seat of the Diocese of Brentwood.
History
Brentwood Cathedral began in 1861 as a parish church built in a Gothic style. This relatively s ...
*
Downing College, Cambridge
*''
A Classical Adventure: The Architectural History of Downing College, Cambridge''
*
St Helen's Bishopsgate
*
Hotham House
Hotham House is a commercial building in Richmond, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, and the UK headquarters of eBay and Gumtree. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Thames, east of Corporation Island, at the junction ...
– Richmond Riverside
*
Francis Terry – His son, also an architect
References
Further reading
*
Rawle, Tim (author), Rawle, Tim; Sinclair, Louis (photographers),
Adamson, John (editor). ''
A Classical Adventure: The Architectural History of Downing College, Cambridge'', Cambridge, The Oxbridge Portfolio, 2015, 200 pp.
*
Watkin, David''The Practice of Classical Architecture: The Architecture of Quinlan and Francis Terry, 2005–2015'' New York: Rizzoli, 2015, .
*
Watkin, David. ''Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry''. New York: Rizzoli, 2006,
External links
Quinlan Terry Architects LLP
{{DEFAULTSORT:Terry, Quinlan
1937 births
Living people
20th-century English architects
21st-century English architects
Alumni of the Architectural Association School of Architecture
Architects from London
British neoclassical architects
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Driehaus Architecture Prize winners
New Classical architects
People educated at Bryanston School
People from Hampstead