Wren Challenge: ongoing

This is a project I created to improve my sketching skills, analyse historical, resilient buildings and engage with the history of London architecture..

Christopher Wren may be most famous for his design of the new St Paul’s Cathedral after the old one was destroyed in London’s Great Fire of 1666, but the architect and engineer was already an experienced church designer by the time he took that challenge on. Twenty two Wren-designed buildings still stand in London today, of which fifteen are churches located mostly in the Square Mile.

I wanted to capture Wren’s genius with an ongoing project to locate, observe and draw his buildings. Having stood the test of time, I believe they really showcase what good civil engineering should look like – robust, safe, human-scale and adapted to the needs of those who use it.

Wren lived and designed in a different century, but took pride in using what resources were available in his time. Today’s civil engineers may be pioneering low-carbon concrete and solar-energy-collecting windows instead of stone and glass, but we should emulate Wren’s approaches, because city dwellers still ultimately want their buildings to be fit-for-purpose, future-proof and beautiful.