ABSTRACT
The comparative approach adopted in this paper for assessing the scientist-cum-architect, Robert Hooke’s contribution to architectural history might seem unnecessarily oblique, particularly at a meeting dedicated to a celebration of the achievements of the man. But there are good reasons for this. In the first place, it is very difficult to write a conventional architectural historical account of Hooke’s work, linking a narrative to a notion of demonstrable stylistic progression. This is not simply the result of incomplete information; enough material exists, the problem seems to lie with the object of study itself. Hooke is not the only English architect of the period with a fragmentary profile of this kind – for most of the seventeenth century, architectural design in this country remained essentially an ad-hoc amateur activity dictated by opportunity rather than full-time commitment within an organizational framework – but his case seems to suggest deeper causes. The second reason for adopting this approach is that it offers an opportunity to investigate the emergence of a new class of ‘professional’ in the field, the scientist-architect. It is a phenomenon unique to the late seventeenth century in pre-modern architectural history, and there were only ever a handful of individuals whose careers fit this description. It therefore seems sensible to look at three of the principal figures together as the basis for setting criteria for judging the defining characteristics of the development.
