John Frederick Harris

OBE 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 o ...

(13 August 1931 – 6 May 2022) was an English curator, historian of architecture, gardens and architectural drawings, and the author of more than 25 books and catalogues, and 200 articles. He was a Fellow and Curator Emeritus of the Drawings Collection of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

, founding Trustee of

Save Britain's Heritage Save Britain's Heritage (styled as ''SAVE Britain's Heritage'') is a British charity, created in 1975 by a group of journalists, historians, architects, and planners to campaign publicly for endangered historic buildings. It is also active on the ...

and Save Europe's Heritage, and founding member and Honorary Life President of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums.

Career

John Harris was born on 13 August 1931 in

Hackney, London Hackney is a district in East London, England, forming around two-thirds of the area of the modern London Borough of Hackney, to which it gives its name. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Charing Cross and includes part of the Que ...

, to Maud, a housewife, and Frederick Harris, an upholsterer. He left school shortly before he was 14. He travelled and took on miscellaneous jobs, before starting his proper career in 1954 working in an antiques shop, Collin and Winslow.Building Design Online, Moving Stories article by John Harris on 24 August 2007
Retrieved 31 October 2007 In 1956 he joined the

(RIBA) Library and Drawings Collection in London, becoming curator of its British Architectural Library's Drawings Collection from 1960 to 1986. This included the establishment in 1972 of a permanent home for the Drawings Collection in the James Adam designed house at 21 Portman Square (moved to the V&A Henry Cole Wing in 2002), next door to and sharing with the Courtauld Institute at Home House, 20 Portman Square (moved to

Somerset House Somerset House is a large Neoclassical complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace ( ...

in 1989). Harris founded and organised 42 exhibitions at the Heinz Gallery, on the ground floor of 21 Portman Square, opened in 1972, designed by Stefan Buzas and Alan Irvine, given by Mr and Mrs Henry J Heinz II, being the first purpose built gallery for the display of architectural drawings in the English speaking world. The Gallery was purchased in 2000 by the Irish Architectural Archive and moved in 2003-4 to the ground floor of their relocated premises at 45 Merrion Square, Dublin, which opened to the public in 2005. RIBA's Drawings Collection Gallery was re-established in 2004 as part of the joint V&A and

RIBA The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

Architecture Partnership, creating the Architecture Gallery in Room 128 at the V&A. Harris was a co-curator of the seminal Destruction of the Country House exhibition held at the V&A in 1974, with Sir

Roy Strong Sir Roy Colin Strong, (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has served as director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ...

and Marcus Binney, which gave impetus to the movement to conserve British

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhouse (Great Britain), town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the cit ...

s and the founding in 1975 of

. He was editor of ''Studies in Architecture'' 1976–99. In 1996 he was a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Center,

Getty Villa The Getty Villa is at the easterly end of the Malibu coast in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. One of two campuses of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Villa is an educational center and museum de ...

, Santa Monica. Harris also played a crucial role in the establishment of the

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street ...

in Montreal and the Heinz Architecture Centre in the

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbu ...

, Pittsburgh. He was a member for ten years of Mr Paul Mellon's London Acquisitions Committee. Harris worked on the Victoria and Albert Primary Galleries Project (1996–2001). He was on the Board of Trustees of

The Architecture Foundation Founded in 1991, The Architecture Foundation is Britain's oldest independent architecture centre. It examines contemporary issues in architectural theory and practice, through a public programme that has involved exhibitions, competitions publicat ...

. He was a Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soci ...

. He was an expert on

Palladian architecture 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 ...

, and wrote about, among many others, Lord Burlington,

William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, bu ...

and Sir William Chambers. Harris was married to American historian and author Dr

Eileen Harris Dr Eileen Joyce Harris (born 1932) is an American/English architectural historian and author. She is an expert on Robert Adam and is Honorary Librarian and Consultant to the Adam Project at Sir John Soane's Museum in London. Early and family life ...

(from circa 1961), had a son, Lucian Guthrie, and a daughter, Georgina, and lived in London and Badminton, Gloucestershire. He died on 6 May 2022, aged 90. File:John Frederick Harris, UK.jpeg, John Frederick Harris, UK File:John Frederick Harris 2, UK.jpeg, John Frederick Harris 2, UK

Bibliography

Books

*
''Regency Furniture Designs from Contemporary Source Books, 1803–26''
(1961) Master Hands Series, Tiranti, , . A collection of pattern books with various comparative plates of 1744 to 1812 (1961) Tiranti, ASIN: B0000CKZQR.

(1964)

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

series, with

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ...

, Penguin. Revised by Nicholas Antram in 1970 and 1989.
''Georgian Country Houses''
(1968) Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Series, Country Life Books, , .
''Sir William Chambers: Knight of the Polar Star''
(1970) with J. Mordaunt Crook and Eileen Harris, Zwemmer, , .
''Catalogue of British Drawings for Architecture, Decoration, Sculpture and Landscape Gardening In American Collections 1550–1900''
(1971) Irvington Pub, , .
''A Country House Index''
(1971) An index to over 2000 country houses illustrated in 107 books of country views published between 1715 and 1872, together with a list of British country house guides and country house art collection catalogues for the period 1726–1880, Pinhorns Handbooks No 7, , . 2nd edition (1979) Pinhorns, , .
''Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: Inigo Jones and John Webb''
(1973) Gregg Revivals, , .
''Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: Colen Campbell''
(1973) Gregg Revivals, , .
''The Destruction of the Country House: 1875–1975''
(1974) with Roy Strong and Marcus Binney, Thames & Hudson Ltd, , .
''Gardens of Delight, The Rococo English Landscape of Thomas Robins The Elder''
(1978) with natural history notes by Dr Martyn Rix, 2 volumes, Basilisk Press, limited edition of 515 copies, based on the 1975-6 RIBA exhibition.
''A Garden Alphabet''
(1979) compiled by John Harris in association with 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 ...

for the Garden Exhibition,

Octopus Books An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefis ...

, , .
''The Artist and the Country House''
(1979)

Sotheby Parke Bernet Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

, , .
''Lost Houses of Scotland''
(1980) with Marcus Binney and Emma Winnington, Save Britain's Heritage, , .
''The Palladians''
(1982) Rizzoli, paperback, , .
''William Talman: Maverick Architect''
(1982) Genius of Architecture Series,

Allen and Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It went on to become one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and to establish an ...

, , . Paperback edition (1982) , .
''Great Drawings from the Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects''
(1983) with Jill Lever and Margaret Richardson, Trefoil Publications Ltd, , . Also , .
''The Architect and the British Country House, 1620–1920''
(1985) American Institute of Architects Press, paperback, , .
''The Design of the English Country House''
(1985) Trefoil Publications Ltd, hardcover, , . * ''

Carlo Fontana Carlo Fontana (1634 or 1638–1714) was an Italian architect originating from today's Canton Ticino, who was in part responsible for the classicizing direction taken by Late Baroque Roman architecture. Biography There seems to be no proof th ...

: The Drawings at Windsor Castle'' (1987).
''Architectural Drawings in the Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum''
(1987) with Nancy Aakre and Lisa Taylor,

Cooper-Hewitt Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...

, , .
''Inigo Jones: Complete Architectural Drawings''
(1989) Studies in Architecture, Zwemmer, , .
''Sir William Chambers: Catalogues of Architectural Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum''
(1997) with Stephen Astley, Janine Barrier, and Gertrud Siedmann, edited by Michael Snodin, V&A Publications, , .
''No Voice from the Hall: Early Memories of a Country House Snooper''
(1998) John Murray, , . Large print edition (1998) ISIS Large Print Books, , . Paperback edition (2000) John Murray, , .
''Echoing Voices: More Memories of a Country House Snooper''
(2002) John Murray, , . Large print edition (2003) Ulverscroft, , . Paperback edition (2003) John Murray, , . Paperback large print edition (2004) Ulverscroft, , .
''Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages''
(2007)

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univer ...

, , . *''Badminton: The Duke of Beaufort, His House'' (2007).

Editor

Catalogue of the Drawings by Inigo Jones, John Webb and Isaac De Caus at Worcester College, Oxford
(1979) edited with A.A. Tait, Oxford University Press, , .
The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting: Parks, Pleasure Grounds, Gardens, etc: A Facsimile
(1970) Oriel Press, , .
Country Seat: Studies in the History of the British Country House
(1970) Presented to Sir John Summerson on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday Together with a Select Bibliography of His Published Writings, edited with

Howard Colvin Sir Howard Montagu Colvin (15 October 1919 – 27 December 2007) was a British architectural historian who produced two of the most outstanding works of scholarship in his field: ''A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840 ...

, published by Allen Lane (the Penguin Press), , .

Exhibition catalogues

A Passion for Building: the Amateur Architect in England 1650–1850
(2007) with Robert Hradsky, for

Sir John Soane's Museum Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect, John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects, and ...

, .
William Kent (1685–1748): A Poet on Paper
(1998) Sir John Soane's Museum.
Sir William Chambers: Architect to George III
(1996) Yale University Press, .
The Artist and the Country House: From the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day
(1996) Exhibition to Benefit the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, Sotheby's, , .
The Palladian Revival: Lord Burlington, His Villa and Garden at Chiswick
(1994) Yale University Press, , which won the Architectural Exhibition Catalogue Award of the Society of Architectural Historians in 1995.
Silent Cities
(1977) An Exhibition of the Memorial and Cemetery Architecture of the Great War, with Gavin Stamp, at the RIBA Heinz Gallery, London.
Gardens of Delight: The Art of Thomas Robins
(1975) RIBA Heinz Gallery, exhibition 9 December 1975 to 20 March 1976. *Headfort House and

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his ...

(1973) Drawings from The Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon, at the RIBA Heinz Gallery, London. *The King's Arcadia:

Inigo Jones Inigo Jones (; 15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant Architecture of England, architect in England and Wales in the Early modern Europe, early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvius, Vitruvian rules of proportion an ...

and the Stuart Court (1973) with Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong, a quatercentenary exhibition at the Banqueting House, Whitehall, London.

Essays, chapters and introductions

* Precedents and Various Designs Collected by C.H. Tatham (1982) in In Search of Modern Architecture: A Tribute to Henry-Russell Hitchcock, edited by Helen Searing, Architectural History Foundation/Mit Press Series, , .
Inside Out: Historic Watercolour Drawings, Oil Sketches and Paintings of Interiors and Exteriors 1770–1870
(2000) by Frederick Michael Pick, Stair & Company, , . Introduction titled "Architectural Drawings: A Short Historiography".
Vitruvius Britannicus, or The British architect...
(1967–72), 4 volumes, reproduced works by

Colen Campbell Colen Campbell (15 June 1676 – 13 September 1729) was a pioneering Scottish architect and architectural writer, credited as a founder of the Georgian style. For most of his career, he resided in Italy and England. As well as his architectura ...

, J. Badeslade,

John Rocque John Rocque (originally Jean; c. 1704–1762) was a French-born British surveyor and cartographer, best known for his detailed map of London published in 1746. Life and career Rocque was born in France in about 1704, one of four children of a ...

James Gandon James Gandon (20 February 1743 – 24 December 1823) was an English architect best known for his work in Ireland during the late 18th century and early 19th century. His better known works include The Custom House and the surrounding Beresfor ...

, John Woolfe, George Richardson, Denise Addis and Paul Breman, published by Benjamin Blom, New York. *A Dying Breed of Connoisseur, The Art Newspaper, April 2002. *Diverting Labyrinths, Country Life magazine, 11 January 1990. *Forty years since ''The Destruction of the Country House'' exhibition at the V&A Museum, 1974.

Lectures

The Annual Soane Lecture
(2007) Sir John Soane's Museum, London, on Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages.
The Andrew W Mellon Lectures
(1981) on Palladian architecture in England.

References

External links

Photos of John Harris and the Heinz Gallery, in his ''Moving Stories'' article, BD Magazine 24 August 2007
* ttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article2424618.ece The Times book review of ''Moving Rooms'', by Marcus Binney, 11 September 2007br>The Guardian book review of ''Moving Rooms'', by Sir Simon Jenkins, 18 August 2007
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, John 1931 births 2022 deaths English architectural historians English male non-fiction writers Country Life (magazine) people Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Hackney, London