Richard Boyle with William Kent, Chiswick House

0:00:06.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’ve come out to Chiswick House in West London, this early 18th-century architectural experiment. Was it possible to use the theories and the forms of ancient Rome here in modern London?

0:00:18.8 Dr. Beth Harris: Well, we are in modern London, but we also couldn’t be blamed for thinking we were in northern Italy looking at one of the villas designed by Palladio.

0:00:29.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: The Third Earl of Burlington, Richard Boyle, was an amateur architect and studied ancient Roman architecture, specifically the books on architecture by Vitruvius, but also studied the work of Palladio, this Renaissance interpretation of ancient Rome. And he wanted to bring those ideas here to his home. Now, Lord Burlington did what many wealthy British men did. He went on the Grand Tour. That is, he went to visit the great historical sites in Europe. And that almost always meant going to Italy. And there he studied ancient Roman architecture and the work of Palladio. But he also met a man named William Kent.

0:01:10.4 Dr. Beth Harris: And it was working with William Kent that Boyle built Chiswick House.

0:01:15.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: The early 18th century was a moment when the prevalent architecture for the wealthy in England and in France and Italy was the Baroque. And that architectural style, which we can see, for example, at the Palace at Versailles, is characterized by heavy ornamentation. The idea was to strip away the ornament of the Baroque and instead to celebrate a kind of formal ideal, that is, shapes and geometries that had been revered by the ancient Greeks and later by the ancient Romans.

0:01:43.9 Dr. Beth Harris: So as we look at Chiswick House, we get a sense of carefully considered proportions where there’s a sense of balance, of harmony, of symmetry. I think it’s important, too, to remember that Palladio was building villas and this, too, is a villa. So the idea of places for leisure, to escape the city, to house one’s art collection, and that’s precisely what Boyle did here.

0:02:10.7 Dr. Steven Zucker: This really was a private gallery. It was meant to show off his artwork. But mainly it was meant to be a work of art in and of itself. And it was meant to be framed by both formal and informal gardens that surrounded it. In fact, Kent, who was not only a furniture designer, an architect, but also a garden designer, helped Boyle design the extensive gardens that surround this house.

0:02:33.2 Dr. Beth Harris: In fact, garden historians point to the work that Kent did here as the beginning of an English style of garden.

0:02:40.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: But it’s not just the strict geometry that recalls ancient Greece and ancient Rome here. It’s the individual architectural elements as well.

0:02:48.9 Dr. Beth Harris: Well, the front of the building in so many ways recalls the ancient Roman temple of the Pantheon. We see a kind of Greek temple front with six columns with lovely Corinthian capitals, fluted columns above that a frieze, and a pediment. And then behind that, a dome.

0:03:08.3 Dr. Steven Zucker: And it may seem presumptuous to take a dome, which we might associate with the temple architecture of ancient Rome, and put it in a domestic house. But Boyle, through his research, realized that ancient Roman villas could indeed include domes.

0:03:24.2 Dr. Beth Harris: The ground level of the front entrance includes a stairway on either side and then rusticated stone, which could remind us of ancient Roman architecture, but also the Renaissance architecture of palaces. For example, the Medici Palace in Florence.

0:03:40.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: Or the Italians’ love of the grotto, where you also find rusticated elements. And in that way, the rusticated stones on the façade of the building link to the grotto and waterfall that’s just off to the side in the gardens.

0:03:55.0 Dr. Beth Harris: Windows on either side of the front entrance have pediments above them. We have all the forms of ancient Greek and ancient Roman architecture here.

0:04:03.1 Dr. Steven Zucker: And the result was so stunning that people interested in architecture traveled from across Europe, and even from America, to see this building. So these are architectural forms that began in ancient Greece, were adopted by the ancient Romans, were adopted again in the Renaissance era, and transformed during the Baroque. And then here, in the early 18th century, this is an attempt to strip away the unnecessary ornamentation that had accumulated during the Baroque era to try to find those pure classical forms. What Boyle believed was a cultural high point. And that proved very powerful. We see neoclassical architecture then in the 18th, the 19th, and even being built into the early 20th centuries.

Learn more from Chiswick House & Gardens Trust

Read an essay on Andrea Palladio’s La Rotonda

Toby Barnard and Jane Clark, editors, Lord Burlington: Architecture, Art and Life (London: The Hambledon Press, 1995).

Gillian Clegg, Chiswick House and Gardens: A History (London: McHugh Publications, 2011).

John Harris, The Palladian Revival: Lord Burlington, His Villa and Garden at Chiswick (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).

David Jacques, Chiswick House Gardens: 300 years of creation and re-creation (London: Historic England, 2022).

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