St. Paul's Cathedral, London
Title
St. Paul's Cathedral, London
Description
St. Paul’s Cathedral in London is a magnificent building, a titanic Latin cross of ornately-carved white limestone capped by a lead dome which soars 280 feet (not counting its lantern or its cross) over the streets of London (Britannica). The Baroque cathedral combines a Continental architectural sensibility with a distinctly English attitude to architecture, religion, and even secular power.
St. Paul’s Cathedral is built on the site of several older buildings, mostly older cathedrals of St. Paul but also including, supposedly, a Roman temple to the goddess Diana. This latest iteration of the structure was planned and built under the supervision of the architect Christopher Wren after the previous St. Paul’s Cathedral, which had been badly damaged after the troops of Lord Protector of England James Cromwell had used it as a barracks, burnt down during the 1666 Great Fire of London. Wren was commissioned by the English government, which had itself recently been restored from Cromwell’s Protectorate to a monarchy ruled by Charles II, to create a new cathedral to replace the one which had been destroyed, and he did so with aplomb. Aside from the aforementioned massive dome (which is actually composed of three layers: the outer lead dome, an inner masonry dome adorned with frescoes, and a hidden brick cone in between the two to provide structural support), the cathedral boasts a Greco-Roman-style facade, with a two-story Corinthian colonnade and pediment. The Corinthian columns continue around the exterior of the cathedral, sometimes as full columns on the semicircular porticos which open from the secondary facades at the ends of the transept and sometimes as pilasters which frame the building’s windows in sets of two. The tholus (circular colonnade) beneath the cathedral’s dome and the pediments over the second-story windows also refer to classical architecture. The building is marked as baroque, however, by the ornate designs which cover it (e.g. relief carvings of garlands), by a preference for curved lines (e.g. the aforementioned porticos and the arched windows of the first story), and by the very ornate decoration of the interior, whose soaring and elaborately-coffered vaults combine with light streaming in from the clerestory windows of the nave and the dome to produce the sort of heavenly effect for which Baroque architecture is known (All sources Britannica).
Still, St. Paul’s Cathedral isn’t as flamboyantly Baroque as the churches of Italy or even France. It gains an austere quality from its stark white coloration, which lacks even the irregular, colorful veins of marble, and, though its interior is lavishly decorated, the great height of the ceilings combined with a fairly subdued (for the Baroque period) color palette means that the aesthetic of the building is less “awesome beauty” and more “solemn beauty,” a move which could be seen to anticipate the neoclassicist direction taken by the architects of the eighteenth century. The differences between St. Paul’s and contemporary European cathedrals could be attributed to the unique political situation of England at the time of the building’s construction: the monarchy had just been restored, and the creation of a building like this would have been an excellent chance to demonstrate the power and wealth of Charles II as well as his control over the Church of England. The ostentatious style and grand scale make a good deal of sense when looked at from this perspective. The comparative austerity, meanwhile, likely results from the fact that, unlike Italy, France or Spain, England was a Protestant nation, and the Stuart kings were questionably Protestant at best. Because, like other Protestants, Anglican Christians tended to prefer simple, functional church architecture to the extravagant style favored by Catholics, creating a fully Baroque cathedral replete with visual delights would have created suspicion and anger in a country already wary of their monarch’s beliefs. As such, St. Paul’s Cathedral can be seen both as an excellent example of Baroque architecture and a demonstration of the ways in which, far from being simply functional, architectural styles must be interpreted and altered according to the cultural and political environments in which architects find themselves.
St. Paul’s Cathedral is built on the site of several older buildings, mostly older cathedrals of St. Paul but also including, supposedly, a Roman temple to the goddess Diana. This latest iteration of the structure was planned and built under the supervision of the architect Christopher Wren after the previous St. Paul’s Cathedral, which had been badly damaged after the troops of Lord Protector of England James Cromwell had used it as a barracks, burnt down during the 1666 Great Fire of London. Wren was commissioned by the English government, which had itself recently been restored from Cromwell’s Protectorate to a monarchy ruled by Charles II, to create a new cathedral to replace the one which had been destroyed, and he did so with aplomb. Aside from the aforementioned massive dome (which is actually composed of three layers: the outer lead dome, an inner masonry dome adorned with frescoes, and a hidden brick cone in between the two to provide structural support), the cathedral boasts a Greco-Roman-style facade, with a two-story Corinthian colonnade and pediment. The Corinthian columns continue around the exterior of the cathedral, sometimes as full columns on the semicircular porticos which open from the secondary facades at the ends of the transept and sometimes as pilasters which frame the building’s windows in sets of two. The tholus (circular colonnade) beneath the cathedral’s dome and the pediments over the second-story windows also refer to classical architecture. The building is marked as baroque, however, by the ornate designs which cover it (e.g. relief carvings of garlands), by a preference for curved lines (e.g. the aforementioned porticos and the arched windows of the first story), and by the very ornate decoration of the interior, whose soaring and elaborately-coffered vaults combine with light streaming in from the clerestory windows of the nave and the dome to produce the sort of heavenly effect for which Baroque architecture is known (All sources Britannica).
Still, St. Paul’s Cathedral isn’t as flamboyantly Baroque as the churches of Italy or even France. It gains an austere quality from its stark white coloration, which lacks even the irregular, colorful veins of marble, and, though its interior is lavishly decorated, the great height of the ceilings combined with a fairly subdued (for the Baroque period) color palette means that the aesthetic of the building is less “awesome beauty” and more “solemn beauty,” a move which could be seen to anticipate the neoclassicist direction taken by the architects of the eighteenth century. The differences between St. Paul’s and contemporary European cathedrals could be attributed to the unique political situation of England at the time of the building’s construction: the monarchy had just been restored, and the creation of a building like this would have been an excellent chance to demonstrate the power and wealth of Charles II as well as his control over the Church of England. The ostentatious style and grand scale make a good deal of sense when looked at from this perspective. The comparative austerity, meanwhile, likely results from the fact that, unlike Italy, France or Spain, England was a Protestant nation, and the Stuart kings were questionably Protestant at best. Because, like other Protestants, Anglican Christians tended to prefer simple, functional church architecture to the extravagant style favored by Catholics, creating a fully Baroque cathedral replete with visual delights would have created suspicion and anger in a country already wary of their monarch’s beliefs. As such, St. Paul’s Cathedral can be seen both as an excellent example of Baroque architecture and a demonstration of the ways in which, far from being simply functional, architectural styles must be interpreted and altered according to the cultural and political environments in which architects find themselves.
Creator
Interior view: David Illif
Exterior view: Steve Cadman
Architect: Christopher Wren
Exterior view: Steve Cadman
Architect: Christopher Wren
Source
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Paul%27s_Cathedral_Nave,_London,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Pauls_Cathedral_from_West_adj.JPG
"Saint Paul's Cathedral." Encyclopedia Britannica. Last modified March 17, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saint-Pauls-Cathedral-London
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Pauls_Cathedral_from_West_adj.JPG
"Saint Paul's Cathedral." Encyclopedia Britannica. Last modified March 17, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saint-Pauls-Cathedral-London
Date
Completed 1710
Contributor
Brendan Glenn
Rights
interior: CC-BY-SA 3.0
exterior: CC BY 2.0; free re-use
exterior: CC BY 2.0; free re-use
Original Format
interior: photograph
exterior: photograph
exterior: photograph
Physical Dimensions
interior: 6000 x 5230
exterior: 2447 x 2423
exterior: 2447 x 2423
Citation
Interior view: David Illif
Exterior view: Steve Cadman
Architect: Christopher Wren, “St. Paul's Cathedral, London,” HIST 139 - Early Modern Europe, accessed April 26, 2026, https://www.earlymoderneurope.hist.sites.carleton.edu/items/show/157.