Alexander Thomson

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For other uses, see Alexander Thomson (disambiguation).

Alexander "Greek" Thomson
St. Vincent Street Church, Holmwood House, Craigrownie Castle & others at Cove, Argyll
"Greek" Thomson's later work such as the Grecian Chambers on Sauchiehall Street used Greek and Egyptian forms.[1][2]

Alexander "Greek" Thomson (9 April 1817 – 22 March 1875) was an eminent Scottish architect and

sustainable building. Although his work was published in the architectural press of his day, it was little appreciated outside Glasgow during his lifetime. It has only been since the 1950s and 1960s that his critical reputation has revived—not least of all in connection with his probable influence on Frank Lloyd Wright.[3]

Henry-Russell Hitchcock wrote of Thomson in 1966: "Glasgow in the last 150 years has had two of the greatest architects of the Western world. C. R. Mackintosh was not highly productive but his influence in central Europe was comparable to such American architects as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. An even greater and happily more productive architect, though one whose influence can only occasionally be traced in America in Milwaukee and in New York City and not at all as far as I know in Europe, was Alexander Thomson".[4]

Early life

Thomson was born in the village of

bookkeeper
, and Elizabeth Cooper Thomson, he was the ninth of twelve children. His father, who already had eight grown children from his previous marriage, died when Alexander was seven.

The family consequently moved to the outskirts of Glasgow, but tragedy struck when the eldest daughter, Jane, and three of her brothers died between 1828 and 1830, the year that Alexander's mother died. The remaining children moved with one of the older brothers, William, a teacher, and his wife and child to Hangingshaw, just south of Glasgow.

The Thomson boys all worked from a young age, but the children were also home schooled. Alexander's older brother, Ebenezer, was employed as a bookkeeper in a lawyer's office, possibly Wilson, James, and Kays, and later became a partner in the business.[citation needed]

Career

Alexander Thomson began work in 1834, as a clerk in a lawyers office in Glasgow. One of their clients was an architect, Robert Foote, who was impressed by seeing Thomson's drawings and took him on as an

John Baird, initially as an assistant, and later became chief draughtsman. Thomson's younger brother George got apprenticed to Baird in the early 1840s.[5][6]

In September 1847 Thomson married Jane Nicholson, and on the same day her sister married another architect, John Baird (unrelated to Thomson's employer, and referred to by biographers as John Baird II), who fell out with his previous partner. In 1848 Thomson joined him in a new partnership, the practice of Baird & Thomson.[5]

In 1857, as "the rising architectural star of Glasgow,"

United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and his deep religious convictions informed his work. There is a strong suggestion that he closely identified Solomon's Temple with the raised basilica of the same form of his three major churches.[8]

Caledonia Road Church, Glasgow

He produced a diverse range of structures including villas, a castle, urbane terraces, commercial warehouses,

tenements, and three extraordinary churches. Of these, Caledonia Road Church
(1856–57) is now a ruin, Queen's Park United Presbyterian Church (1869) was destroyed in WWII, and
St Vincent Street Church (1859) is the only intact survivor. Hitchcock once stated, "[Thomson has built] three of the finest Romantic Classical churches in the world”.[9] Thomson developed his own highly idiosyncratic style from Greek, Egyptian and Levantine
sources and freely adapted them to the needs of the modern city.

Egyptian Halls
on Union Street
St. Vincent Street Free Church

At the age of 34, Thomson designed his first and only castle, Craigrownie Castle, which stands at the tip of the Rosneath Peninsula in

battlements, steep gables and oriel windows, in addition to a chapel and a mews
cottage.

Thomson's villa designs were realized at

Greek Revival houses,...[and they] are dominated by horizontal lines and rest on a strong podium."[10] According to Gavin Stamp, "Thomson carefully designed his villas with symmetries within an overall asymmetry in a personal language in which the horizontal discipline of a continuous governing order—whether expressed or implied—was never abandoned.[10] Regarding similarities to Frank Lloyd Wright, Stamp states, "It has often been remarked that there are clear resemblances between the early houses of the Prairie School and Thomson's horizontally massed design, with its low-pitched gables and spreading eaves -- together with a connecting garden." As Sir John Summerson noted, "There is something wildly 'American' about Thomson -- a 'New World' attitude. You can see it in the villas...a sort of primitivism, ultra-Tuscan."[10]

Caledonia Road Church, Glasgow

Later in his career he would abandon his eclecticism and adopt the purely

Egyptian Halls in Union Street, Grosvenor Building, Buck's Head Building in Argyle Street, Grecian Buildings in Sauchiehall Street, Walmer and Millbrae Crescents, and his villa, Holmwood House, at Cathcart.

Terraced houses on Millbrae Crescent in Langside, c. 1870

Grave monuments designed by Thomson that are worthy of study include those to the Revd. A.O. Beattie and the Revd. G.M. Middleton, as well as that for John McIntyre in Cathcart Old Parish Cemetery

.

Thomson was a

High Street. Thomson suggested that closely spaced parallel tenements be built within the central courtyard, the ends of which will be open to facilitate ventilation. He also proposed that alternate streets be glazed for better warmth and safety for the residents. Although Thomson's ideas failed to catch on at the time, new research and CAD
techniques have helped show how revolutionary was his proposal for improved workers' housing.

Writings

Thomson's published writings include the Haldane lectures on the history of architecture (1874) and the Inquiry as to the Appropriateness of the Gothic Style for the Proposed building for the University of Glasgow (1866) which attempted to refute Ruskin and Pugin’s claims for the superiority of Gothic.

Family

On 21 September 1847, Thomson married Jane Nicholson, granddaughter of the architect

double wedding ceremony with her sister, Jessie, who married John Baird II. They had twelve children in total and would later lose five of them in an epidemic
.

One brother,

epiphytic orchid of the genus Pachystoma was named Pachystoma thomsonianum in his honour.[13] It is now known as Ancistrochilus thomsonianus
.

His nephew,

bleeding-heart vine Clerodendrum thomsoniae was named.[14][15]

Death

Thomson died on 22 March 1875 at his home in Moray Place in

Gorbals Southern Necropolis
, on 26 March 1875, and he was joined there by his widow, Jane, in 1889.

His obituary appeared in Building News on 26 March 1875, written by his friend, Thomas Gildard, who also wrote his biography.[16]

Legacy

Alexander "Greek" Thomson by John Mossman, 1877

The Glasgow Institute of Architects set up The Alexander Thomson Memorial immediately following his death. A marble bust of the architect by John Mossman was presented to the Corporation Galleries, Sauchiehall Street, and is now displayed in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. The Alexander Thomson Travelling Studentship, of which the second winner was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was established in his honor, "for the purpose of providing a travelling studentship for the furtherance of the study of ancient classic architecture, with special reference to the principles illustrated in Mr. Thomson’s works".[17]

Thomson was the pre-eminent architect of his era in Glasgow, yet until recently, his buildings and his reputation have been largely neglected in the city graced by his works.

Holmwood House is generally considered to be Thomson's finest and most original residential subject. Under the ownership of the National Trust for Scotland, Holmwood has been restored to its original condition and opened to the general public. During the renovation, nineteen panels of a classical frieze depicting scenes from Homer's Iliad were discovered under layers of paint and wallpaper, rendering Thomson's nickname all the more apt.

In 1999, a

The Lighthouse
, reminding Glaswegians of the need to preserve the remaining examples of this unique architect's contribution to their city.

The British emigre architect George Ashdown Audsley closely followed Thomson's ornamentation for several of his secular buildings. The most notable surviving example is his Bowling Green Offices (completed 1896) in New York City. The highly carved granite base of this tall office building is in the Thomson manner with brick Chicago School style floors above.

Thomson was featured on the obverse of a 1999 commemorative £20 bank note from Clydesdale Bank of Scotland dated with his birthday 9 April, marking Glasgow's award that year as UK City of Architecture and Design. An interior view of the dome of Holmwood House, designed by Thomson, is the main motif on the reverse side. Five million notes were issued.

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexander Thomson.
  • "Alexander Thomson: architectonics and ideals of the classic Glaswegian", John McKean, AA Files (Architectural Association, London), No 9, Summer 1985
  • Dignity and Decadence, Richard Jenkyns, Harvard University Press, 1991.
  • "Greek" Thomson, Ed. Gavin Stamp and Sam McKinstry, Edinburgh UP,1994
  • 'Thomson's City: 19th Century Glasgow', John McKean, in "Places : A Forum of Environmental Design", University of California (Cambridge Mass), Volume 9, Number 1, Winter 1994, pp. 22–33. It is accessible at: "?" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 July 2011.
  • Architecture of Glasgow, Andor Gomme and David Walker, Lund, 1987, 2nd. ed.
  • Early Victorian Architecture in Britain Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Yale, 1954
  • The Life and Work of Alexander Thomson, Ronald MacFadzean, London, 1979
  • Alexander "Greek" Thomson, Gavin Stamp, 1999
  • The Greek Revival, J Mourdant Crook, 1972.
  • "Glasgow: from 'Universal' to 'Regionalist' City and beyond - from Thomson to Mackintosh", John McKean, in Sources of Regionalism in 19th Century Architecture, Art and Literature, ed. van Santvoort, Verschaffel and De Meyer, Leuven, 2008

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-521-38915-0
    . Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  2. ISBN 978-0-19-105385-6
    . Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  3. ^ Andrew MacMillan in "Greek" Thomson, Stamp et al., p.207
  4. Glasgow Herald
    , 4 March 1966, on the occasion of the proposed demolition by the City council of the Caledonia Road Church
  5. ^ a b Goold, David (2016). "DSA Architect Biography Report; Alexander Thomson". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  6. ^ "Dictionary of Scottish Architects - DSA Architect Biography Report". www.scottisharchitects.org.uk. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  7. ^ Stamp, Gavin. "At Once Classic and Picturesque...": Alexander Thomson's Holmwood. The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57.1 (1998):46-58.
  8. ^ J. Stevens Curl, "St Vincent Street Church as a mnemonic of the Temple of Solomon", p.6 ff, The Alexander Thomson Society Newsletter, No. 12 January 1995.
  9. ^ H. R. Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1963, p.63
  10. ^ a b c Stamp, Gavin. "At Once Classic and Picturesque...": Alexander Thomson's Holmwood. The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57.1 (1998): 46.
  11. ^ Stamp, Gavin. "At Once Classic and Picturesque...": Alexander Thomson's Holmwood. The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57.1 (1998): 50.
  12. ^
    ISBN 0-85066-843-3
    .
  13. ISBN 0-9553515-0-2
    .
  14. ^ Balfour, J.H. Description of a new species of Clerodendron... Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal n.s., 15(2): 233–235, t. 2. 1862.
  15. ISBN 0-8493-2675-3
    .
  16. ^ Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Gildard
  17. ^ "The Alexander Thomson Memorial". www.greekthomson.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 8 September 2020.

External links

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