Owen Jones (architect) - Architectural Projects and Other Significant Commissions

Architectural Projects and Other Significant Commissions

Due to the overwhelming impact, influence and enduring legacy of The Grammar of Ornament, it can be easy to forget that Jones was, during his lifetime, well known to the public for his work as an architect. This skew in our contemporary perception of Jones’s work is made particularly acute because many of Jones’s built projects have since been demolished or otherwise destroyed – most notably the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, which was lost forever due to a fire in 1936. His most important building was St James's Hall, which was located between Piccadilly and Regent Street and for almost fifty years was London’s principal concert hall. Jones was also responsible for two grand shopping emporiums: the Crystal Palace Bazaar and a showroom for Osler’s, the glassware manufacturer, both in the West End. These three buildings all opened within a few years of each other, between 1858 and 1860, but had all been demolished by 1926. Their sumptuous polychromed interiors of cast iron, plaster and stained glass were breathtaking monuments to leisure and consumption.

One of the earliest examples of Jones’s decoration as applied to architecture (and one of the few examples to exist today, albeit restored) was his work on Christ Church, Streatham, built in 1841 by James Wild (1814–1892), who later became Jones’s brother-in-law. Jones was responsible for the interior decoration, but would most probably have also contributed to the design of the exterior which exhibits brick polychromy and architectural details with Byzantine and Islamic influences. During the early 1860s, Jones was commissioned to design the South Kensington Museum’s Indian Court and Chinese & Japanese Court, collectively known as the Oriental Courts. The V&A also holds design drawings by Jones for a speculative ‘Alhambra’ Court, which presumably would have housed exhibits of Islamic art – but for reasons which remain unclear, this scheme was rejected in favour of his designs for the Chinese & Japanese Court. By the early twentieth century, the Oriental Courts were closed, but conservation work carried out in the 1980s has shown that much of Jones’s decoration still exists beneath the modern paintwork.

Also in the 1860s, Jones designed a number of luxurious interiors for high-profile clients, in collaboration with firms such as Jackson & Graham (for furniture) and Jeffrey & Co. (for wallpapers.) For the art collector Alfred Morrison, Jones designed the interiors for his country house at Fonthill (1863) and for his London town house at 16 Carlton House Terrace (1867.) In what he described as the great triumph of his life, Jones was also commissioned to design interiors for the palace of the Viceroy of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, in Cairo (1864.) The work at Carlton House Terrace and the Viceroy’s Palace was noted for Jones’s mastery of Arab and Moorish design principles.