The Fugal Moment of Architecture and Science
The Masque that Changed the Course of History
Today we have a guest post from Professor Wolf. Enjoy!
Scene
Shortly after New Years Day 1625, the royal court of King James was entertained by a musical entitled The Fortunate Isles and Their Blessed Union. In perhaps the greatest case of life imitating art, the performance was at the intersection of several phenomena that would change the course of history.
The musical, performed as a masque, was written by playwright Ben Jonson with stage design by architect Inigo Jones. It was a utopian vision of a unified British Isles. Each of these three men, King, Scientist, and Architect represented three spheres of civilization; State, Society, and Infrastructure, that shaped the profound transformation that followed.
Act I
The musical’s plot referenced heavily a secret society of alchemists known as The Invisible College. This concept was in vouge with intellectuals surrounding Sir Francis Bacon. One year after The Fortunate Isles and Their Blessed Union, Bacon posthumously published The New Atlantis, which featured an identical plot about a utopian island society guided by The Invisible College.
The 1625 publication of The New Atlantis was actually hidden at the end of a treatise on substance called Sylva Sylvarum, Latin for ‘The Forest of Materials’. In his novel Bacon depicted the Invisible College as visible and manifest in the fictional institution of Salomon’s House. This was essentially the blueprint for a state sponsored research university in pure and applied science. The New Atlantis is a narrative exposition of Bacon’s philosophical work, specifically Instauratio Magna, the ‘Great Restoration’. Like the novel, Instauratio Magna, was a description of science and the scientific method for the benefit of society. Specifically, Part 2: Novum Organum, ‘The New Method’ is the first instance of the scientific method. This was the beginning of Science as separate from Philosophy.
Meanwhile, the stage designer, Inigo Jones, was the first English architect to build in the Palladian style. As wealth flowed in from the overseas colonies, England transformed into the British Empire. The new state required a new expression in the built environment. The Anglo-Palladian architecture was a dramatic and total break from tradition and lead directly to the English Baroque style.
The idea of sailing to a distant land to build utopia was inspired by current events, the English had just begun establishing colonies in the New World. A few years before the musical, in 1620, the Puritan Sect was the first wave of mass migration to the colony of New England. It arose in parallel with New Holland colony in 1621.
Act II
Forty years later, on 28 November 1660 The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was founded at Gresham College1 when 12 natural philosophers decided to commence a "College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning" (official royal granted 1662). Amongst those founders were Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, and John Wilkins.2 This organization was the first scientific society in the world, it is considered the birth of modern science and was very self-consciously organized on Salomon’s House. The founding moment grew out of informal meetings and letters between scholars in the Invisible College that had been ongoing since 1645 to explore the ideas of Bacon’s ‘New Science’.
Around the time of the birth of science, in 1664 England annexed New Holland, to control the entire east coast. Between 1620 and 1690 there was a massive flow of people and wealth, that essentially created a new kind of society in England. The expansion of England as a colonial power in the great game ultimately culminated in the Glorious Revolution, the Ascension of King William III and most importantly the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694. The Bank was created to manage an efficient system of credit necessary to build and maintain the British Navy, which secured the overseas colonial empire.
Sources
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00033796200202722
Gresham College itself was a recent institution created less than a century earlier by the estate of Thomas Gresham (a financier who built the Royal Exchange). Shortly after it was formed it released Calculus, Classical Physics, and Electricity.
Of note is founding member Sir Christopher Wren. He was the central architect of the rebuilding of London after the fire of 1666. This rebuilding continued until the acension of King George in 1714.