Travel to United Kingdom: London 6: Public Buildings : Photo 34

It's very easy to walk past all these buildings and ignore this smaller one, which is on the other side of the street. It's the Banqueting House, designed by Inigo Jones and completed in 1622 as a place for court ceremonies. Pevsner, along with many others, treats it with great respect and writes: "The sobriety, the gravity, the learning of Inigo Jones must have been overwhelming by comparison" to older buildings (6:239). Pevsner goes on to characterize the building: seven bays and two storeys raised on a basement; windows generously spaced and with alternating segmental and triangular pediments; composite columns over Ionic; three middle bays projecting with attached columns instead of pilasters; coupled pilasters at the corners for emphasis; the upper capitals linked by garlands. Jones had wanted a couple of things done differently. His plan called for a pediment at the top, not the balustrade. It also called for stones of contrasting colors, not just the same-old, same-old limestone. The sash windows are 1713 replacements of the original (fixed) mullions and transoms. Still, Pevsner calls it a "dazzling building" (6:240). The appearnace of two stories is an illusion: the interior is all one room, a double square measuring 55 by 110 feet and with the ceiling 55 feet above the floor.

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