Word: wren
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Reading a story on the architectural achievements of Sir Christopher Wren in LIFE two years ago, Westminster's President Robert Davidson had an idea: Why not rebuild one of Wren's old churches on the campus? Every one of the 47 remaining London churches designed by Wren was damaged or destroyed during World War II. Over the years, 37 of them have been restored; one of the few considered for eventual demolition was St. Mary Aldermanbury, probably named after the ancient alderman's court that once stood near by, and rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire...
Since Wolsey's day the place has undergone several transformations, notably at the hands of Sir Christopher Wren a century and a half later. Wren remodeled it for his royal masters, William and Mary. But Wolsey's apartments are still there, and it is said that sometimes at night His Eminence can be heard opening and shutting doors. This summer the thousands of tourists who descend upon Hampton Court can get something of the flavor of Wolsey's and Henry VIII's day, as the result of an elaborate restoration job performed by the Ministry...
...rocket propulsion in air-conditioned labs that gleam with ultramodern glass and aluminum. Then, with medieval black gowns flapping, they ride off on rusty bicycles to another world: lunch with 3,751 arts undergraduates (never "students") fresh from reading Sophocles and Shakespeare in a library built by Christopher Wren. Soon scientists and classicists are sunk in shabby armchairs before gasping gas heaters, sipping sherry with their tutors. All around them is a happy blend of past and future: the green-lawned beauty of college "backs" on the River Cam, the sounds of Cantabs cheering on rowers with "Forward Christs...
...heart of present-day London is a one-square-mile area known simply as the City. After the Great Fire of 1666 wiped out its 13,000 houses and 84 churches, from Pudding Lane to Newgate, the City was gradually rebuilt-most of its churches by Sir Christopher Wren. But by World War II it had become more and more a place in which to work rather than to live; the nighttime population was down to 8,000, and after the blitz there were only 5,000, many of them caretakers and night watchmen. But there were still the remains...
...city prices of close to $300 a square foot, this would provide a fabulous windfall with which to build new churches in the suburbs, raise clerical salaries and finance overseas missions. The mere thought of such desecration gave antiquarian Anglicans the pip: the City's churches-especially Wren's-were national treasures, they cried. The war damage should be repaired, and the churches could be turned into museums to remind traipsing tourists and native agnostics of the Church of England's ancient glory...