Wren’s Legacy: Proportion and Ratio at the Church of St James Piccadilly

Scholarship on English church architecture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries rarely discusses the dimensions and design proportions of the church structures themselves. This overlooks valuable evidence about the process of church design. This study investigates the influence of Sir Christopher Wren’s Church of St James Piccadilly on the most significant architects who followed after; James Gibbs, Nicholas Hawksmoor, and John James. Data from recent laser-assisted surveys was used to calculate the proportional relationships that define the interior space of a representative church by each architect; St Martin-in-the-Fields, Christ Church Spitalfields, and St George Hanover Square. The study findings suggest that Gibbs used the simple whole-number ratios advocated by Alberti, Serlio, and Palladio, as did James (for the most part). Hawksmoor followed Wren in combining these with square-root ratios. Wren’s mixed economy of whole-number and square-root ratios echoes the hybrid Gothic and Classical design at St Paul’s.