Radcliffe Camera
THE RADCLIFFE CAMERA
If a single building has come to represent the classical architecture of Oxford, it is surely the Radcliffe Camera, a circular domed library, built with a bequest from Dr John Radcliffe, which stands at the heart of the city next to the Bodleian. Designed by James Gibbs, it was constructed from 1737 to 1749 by the combined workshops of master masons William Townesend and Francis Smith. Building accounts survive. Gibbs intended that the dome of the reading room would be built in stone though ultimately it was constructed in timber with plaster coffering and ornament to resemble stone.
Faced externally in local limestones from Headington and Burford, the upper façade deteriorated dramatically over time and was replaced with Taynton stone though the rusticated base in Headington freestone and hardstone survives in a weathered condition. Inside a combination of local limestones and Portland stone were employed with varying results. The basement which constituted an extensive portico or porch is vaulted in stone and is surely one of the most dramatic interiors of the period in Britain, offering some sense of the stone-vaulted space which Gibbs hoped to achieve in the reading room above. Eight piers carry an arcade supporting a central shallow dome, encircled by an ambulatory of eight volumes, one of which contains an oval stone staircase leading to the reading room. The others each have a shallow circular vault worked in compartments which Gibbs described as ‘mosaic’ work. These have alternating patterns of diminishing octagons and the cross and octagon pattern made famous by Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome. When I first saw photographs of these domes many moons ago I wondered if they were worked in plaster or in stone. They are a rarity in a period when modelled plaster ceilings were the norm and a testament to the skills of the masons and carvers employed by Smith and Townesend.
Christine Casey
