(piano music)
- [Steven] We're in St Paul's Cathedral in London.
This huge church maps so beautifully
to the history of Britain.
- [Beth] The first church was built here
by the East Saxons in the early 600s.
- [Steven] They would have been just recently Christian.
- [Beth] And then that church was burned down
and another church was built
which was destroyed by the Vikings
during the Viking invasions.
- [Steven] And then that was replaced by a church
that was built by the Normans
after they invaded from France in 1066.
And that church survived until the 17th Century.
- [Beth] And at that point it really wasn't in good shape.
The English Civil War had just happened,
the Reformation had happened.
In fact, during the Civil War
the church was used as a stable.
- [Steven] So horses were kept here.
- [Beth] And apparently there was a market here
and a road running through the transept.
- [Steven] So the church was in tremendous disrepair.
But when the monarchy was restored
and Charles II took the throne,
he saw this church as
an expression of his authority as king
and wanted to see it restored as well.
- [Beth] So Christopher Wren, who was at that point
a professor of astronomy at Oxford University
and a scientist.
- [Steven] He was a mathematician,
an overall brilliant Renaissance man.
- [Beth] Charles II called on him
to restore the church that was here
and to rebuild parts of it.
So in 1665, Christopher Wren visited Paris.
He had an interview with Bernini
who was there to consult
about the architecture of the Louvre.
And he came back to England
wanting to replicate the grand classical style
that he saw in Paris.
And he came back armed with engravings.
- [Steven] And that was important
because those engravings showed
not only the great architecture in France
but also the great architecture in Italy.
And Italy was a country he did not visit
but nevertheless, he understood the architecture
that was being produced there.
And we think that there are direct references
back to, for instance Michelangelo's dome at St Peter's
and some of the designs of the Louvre, in Paris.
As well as work by Borromini
and some of the other great architects
of the renaissance and baroque periods.
- [Beth] Although Wren was asked to supply designs
for rebuilding and restoring this church.
There was a great cataclysmic event
that allowed him to entirely rebuild it
and that was the Great Fire of London in 1666
- [Steven] London was at that point,
dense with small wooden houses.
There had been a long, hot, dry summer
and there was also a strong wind.
And this made, what was initially a small fire
grow uncontrollably and was not put out
for between four and five days.
- [Beth] It destroyed most of
what we think of as the City of London,
that is the oldest heart of London.
- [Steven] The medieval City of London was gone.
- [Beth] The fire destroyed more
than 13000 houses, 87 churches.
As well as the church that was here,
but we now refer to as Old St Paul's.
- [Steven] It took years for the city to recover
and Wren was brought in
to the ruins of the church
to see if it could be saved.
Ultimately, he said no
and the old Norman church was taken down
and Wren was able to reconceive the church from scratch.
As well as reconceive it
within the fabric of a city
that he also sought to design.
- [Beth] Wren reconceived a new City of London
with wide streets and boulevards.
He didn't get to build that city
but he did get to build St Paul's.
- [Steven] As well as dozens
and dozens of Paris churches
that dot the City of London today.
- [Beth] Almost 100 churches
in the City of London alone.
- [Steven] And so, although he was not an architect
that was able to completely reconstruct London
from whole cloth,
he did have a major permanent impact.
- [Beth] Standing here, it's impossible
not to think about the church
that Bramante conceived in Rome for the Vatican,
the new Church of St Peter's.
It reminds me of that
because of the scale of the building
and the classicism of the building.
- [Steven] And if Wren had had his way,
one of his initial designs
was even more closely aligned with Bramante.
It was a Greek cross, that is,
instead of it being originally conceived of
as a basilica with a long nave
and in this case, with a long choir,
it was equidistant on all four protruding sides
with a dome in the center.
Wren was fascinated by the symbolic power
and with the majesty of the dome
and would build the first great dome in England.
- [Beth] It rivals St. Peter's in its size,
it rivals other great domed buildings
like Hagia Sophia and The Pantheon in Rome.
- [Steven] Or Brunelleschi's Great Dome in Florence.
This dome is enormous
and it actually dwarfs, in some ways,
the rest of the structure.
The architecture of this building
is a kind of Late Renaissance-Baroque structure
that is borrowing both from the Italian Renaissance
and in turn, from antiquity.
- [Beth] That first idea of Wren's,
to build the Greek cross,
a cross with equal arms,
was very classical in its inspiration.
But Wren was not allowed to build that.
The clergy here were not happy
with the idea of a church that didn't look
like a traditional English church.
They wanted something that was more traditional.
Something that took the shape
of a basilica with a long nave.
So Wren ended up building something
that was somewhat of a compromise.
It has the enormous dome that he wanted.
In many ways it has the feel
of a centrally planned church
because of the enormity of
the dome over the crossing
but the church officials did get
that extended east end,
the choir that they wanted
and they did get an extended nave
toward the west.
- [Steven] But Wren's will really dominates
on the exterior of the church
which is so classicizing.
And makes a real effort to hide
some of the more medieval structural elements
of the church to create
a seamless classical exterior.
- [Beth] Wren relied on flying buttresses
but as you said, he covered them up.
So obviously, foremost on Wren's mind
must have been how to support
a dome of this enormous width
that must have an enormous weight.
- [Steven] If you look closely at the crossing
you can see vast piers.
These are solid masonry structures
that really do
the weight-bearing of this dome.
But as you go up, this dome itself
is more complex than it seems.
There are three structures here.
When you look up at the dome from below,
you're seeing a masonry dome.
But that's doing nothing but supporting itself
because when you look at this building
from the outside, you also notice
that there is a very high lantern on top
which is also masonry
and that sits on what is in fact a lead roof.
And so, when you look at a cross-section
what you're seeing is,
first the masonry dome
which you see from underneath.
Then there's a conical brick wall,
it's about a foot and a half thick
and that is built to support
that masonry lantern on top.
Above that, the outer shell is made of lead
which is supported by timbers.
- [Beth] And there are also iron chains
which circle the dome,
which work to support it.
- [Steven] You can almost think of it
as a kind of belt that's tightened
at the bottom of the dome itself,
to keep the weight from pushing outward
with the kind of lateral thrust
that is a real concern any time
somebody builds an arch or a dome.
- [Beth] And I think we're so used to seeing domes
that it might be hard to imagine how
amazingly beautiful and magisterial
this looked when it was first raised.
- [Steven] In so many ways, this church is a negotiation
between officials of the church and the architect.
The needs and expectations of the monarchs
that ruled when this church was being built.
But also, that had to do
with the very core use of this building.
- [Beth] This was built within
a century and a half of
King Henry VIII breaking away from
the church in Rome, from the Papacy
and establishing the Church of England.
And so what we're looking at is a building
that embodies a new type of church
for a new Church of England.
- [Steven] We've just stepped out of St Paul's Cathedral,
in order to look at the south transept from the outside.
In the pediment, you can see a large bird.
This is meant to represent a phoenix.
A mythological creature that was believed
to live for a very long time.
And at the end of it's life,
it was burned until there was nothing but ashes
and then a young phoenix would arise. And so it had to do
with this rebirth from fire.
And of course, what a perfect metaphor
for this church.
- [Beth] And for the Christian idea
of the resurrection generally,
of life after death.
But there's a special story
that goes along with this
that has to do with Sir Christopher Wren.
When he was planning the cathedral,
he marked out the center of the dome
and asked a workman to bring him a stone
to mark that exact center.
The workman brought him a stone
and when Wren turned it over.
This is all according to legend.
On that stone,
which turned out to be a gravestone
was the word 'Resurgam' which means resurrection.
It's a common word we see on tombstones.
- [Steven] In Latin.
And so, that word can be found
inscribed just below the phoenix
on the transept.
- [Beth] And so we have this idea
of Christian resurrection
but also the idea
of the resurrection of this church
after The Great Fire in 1666.
(piano music)