Nathaniel Clements, 1705-77 Politics, Fashion and Architecture in Mid-Eighteenth Century Ireland |
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Author:
| Malcomson, A. P. W. |
ISBN: | 978-1-85182-914-9 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2015 |
Publisher: | Four Courts Press
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Book Format: | Hardback |
List Price: | Contact Supplier contact
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Book Description:
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This book argues that Nathaniel Clements (1705-77) was an enlightened patron of architecture, not a practicing architect, and that he influenced upper-class residential development in Dublin and popularized a particular form of Palladian 'villa-farm' (or modest country house) partly because of who he was - a high-ranking and well-connected government official and an arbiter of fashion and taste. The two places where his architectural influence is still strongly felt today are the...
More DescriptionThis book argues that Nathaniel Clements (1705-77) was an enlightened patron of architecture, not a practicing architect, and that he influenced upper-class residential development in Dublin and popularized a particular form of Palladian 'villa-farm' (or modest country house) partly because of who he was - a high-ranking and well-connected government official and an arbiter of fashion and taste. The two places where his architectural influence is still strongly felt today are the high-fashion enclave of Henrietta Street, Dublin, of which he created about one-third in the period 1733-c.1740, and the Phoenix Park, of which he was Ranger, where he made important improvements to the landscape and where he built in 1752-57 a new Ranger's Lodge which forms the nucleus of today's Aras an Uachtarain, the official residence of the President of Ireland. The book provides a detailed analysis of these aesthetic achievements and (following Clements' death) of the re-casting of the Ranger's Lodge as a British viceregal residence during the period 1782-c.1800. It concludes with a broader discussion of the 'amateur' tradition in British and Irish architecture and of Clements' place among the 'amateurs' who dominated the art form in the decades before the coming-of-age of a fully-fledged architectural profession. [Subject: Biography, History, Irish Studies, Architecture]