ABSTRACT
For Robert Hooke the year 1674 was an unusually significant one architecturally speaking. It was then that he began work on two of his most prestigious commissions, namely, on Bethlem Hospital, or Bedlam, as it was popularly known, and on Montagu House. Work was also in progress on the Royal College of Physicians, begun in 1670, and on the ‘Fish Street Piller’, or The Monument, begun in 1671.1
The design for the latter was worked out with Sir Christopher Wren, with whom Hooke also collaborated on designs for the City churches to replace those destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.2 Sadly only the Monument and the churches remain today as a tantalizing reminder of his architectural achievements. Montagu House, one of the outstanding town mansions of the time and the subject of discussion of this paper, reveals the characteristic eclectic nature of Robert Hooke’s architecture and stands as a good example of his use of European architectural treatises, handbooks and prints,3 in combination with a readiness for practical innovation and adaptation of ideas from contemporary buildings. His close friendship with Sir Christopher Wren undoubtedly also contributed rich dividends to Hooke’s ideas on architecture.4
