Books at
Lunchtime: Plans, Elevations, Sections And Details Of The Alhambra:
From Drawings Taken On The Spot In 1834, Tuesday 6th May 2014 (Andrew Morrison)
Thomas
Ambler a Leeds-based architect was
commissioned by John Barran in 1870's to design a new warehouse for his rapidly expanding
and innovative mass-produced clothing company. The building was to be erected
on a piece of land on Park Square, Leeds. His
design for this new building, St. Paul’s House, was inspired by Hispano-Moorish
architecture.
Ambler’s
references for this design may well have come from a number of sources.
Cuthbert Broderick’s Oriental and General Baths on Cookridge Street, Leeds which
displayed a number of Near Eastern design elements, had recently opened in
1867. A more comprehensive resource, however, in Owen Jones’s work on the
Alhambra in Granada, published around 20 years earlier, lay on the shelves of
the Leeds Library - of which Ambler and Barran were both members.
In 1842
Jones had published his study of the Alhambra in Granada – the great Moorish
fortress and series of palaces begun by Ibn al-Ahmar, the first Sultan of the Nasrid dynasty, in 1238. Jones and, a French architect, Jules Goury spent six months in the detailed and scientific recording of the buildings and decoration of the Alhambra before Goury died of Cholera. Armed with their notes and drawings Jones returned to London. He became committed to producing a printed work that matched the detail, colour and
precision of both the buildings and their decoration.
Representing the balance of colours that they
had seen proved the hardest to achieve. Jones researched and developed an
existing process known as Chromolithography to print the colour plates he
needed. It took him nine years in total to complete his project. The Alhambra publication launched Jones’s career. His scientific approach to decoration and design were in
great demand from playing card manufacturers like La Rue and Lawrence and Cohen
to the Government School of Design. In 1851, he was appointed Superintendent of
Works for Great Exhibition at Chrystal Palace taking on responsibility for the
arrangement and decoration of the building. In 1856 he
published what is still today an important work of reference for designers -The Grammar of Ornament. |
