ABSTRACT
Today Sir Robert Smirke (Plate V) is remembered as a Greek Revivalist, the architect of the British Museum. But his reputation as the most successful architect of the Regency period was due to his proven ability as business man and builder rather than to his popularity as a stylist. Born in 1780, knighted in 1832, he remained throughout a long life (he died in 1867) an essentially eighteenth century figure, independent of architectural competitions, basing his enormous practice both public and private on an interlocking network of Tory patronage. His most powerful patrons were the Earl of Lonsdale, Earl Bathurst and Sir Robert Peel. Thus, in 1815, he joined John Nash and (Sir) John Soane as a member of the triumvirate of government architects attached to the Office of Works: the three architect-princes of the Regency era. But besides being a fashionable stylist, an Establishment architect par excellence, Smirke was a pioneer of cast iron and concrete construction at a time when the functions of architect and engineer were not readily distinguishable. His status as an innovator rests not only on his use of concrete for foundations, cast iron for beams, girders and braces, and wrought iron for ties, joists and supports, but upon his interest in heating and ventilation,1 his use of novel measuring techniques and his employment of quantity surveyors to ensure accurate accounting. 2 His importance as a constructor lay less in invention than in publicity: in his use of novel methods and materials in several widely publicised commissions. His influence on contemporary constructional technique, as in matters of style, was enormous. "Mr. Smirke," reniarked one critic, "is preeminent in construction: in this respect he has not his superior in the United Kingdom."3
