Virtus on Whitehall: The Politics of Palladianism in William Kent's Treasury Building, 1733–6¹

Abstract

The development of the modern state in the eighteenth century had a material as well as a socio‐political dimension. The 1730s saw the domination of neo‐Palladianism in the Office of Works and the establishment of a prominent and permanent administrative centre whose style made an architectural statement about the conduct of Walpole's government. The nature of this statement is only comprehensible when viewed in the context of contemporary political debate. William Kent's Treasury invoked antique Rome in order to emphasise the government's competence and assert the independence of its officers from patronage and their commitment to the common good.

The Power of Corridors: Connecting Doors, Mobilising Materials, Plotting Openness

“…Although not the focus of this paper, traditional university buildings such as the one discussed in this paper could be viewed as deeply implicated in the construction of academic nobility and disciplinary tribes (Bourdieu, 1988; Becher, 2001), as the mass of undergraduate students, with no ‘home’ in the building, carrying all on their backs on the other side of the wall (Hargreaves, 1967). Indeed, corridors are parts of a traditional cartography of power, in which both gaze and movement are controlled: palaces and monasteries, government buildings, prisons and hospitals are notable for the socio‐political designs of their spatial arrangements (Goffman, 1961; Mumford, 1961; Foucault, 1977; Horowitz, 1984; Lefebvre, 1991; Fossi, 1999; Waid and Clements, 2001; Dodsworth, 2005). However, they are also places where officialdom can turn a ‘blind eye’ on taboo activity (Goffman, 1961), although the possibilities for hidden transgression can refocus the sanctioning gaze (Holland et al ., 2007; Sitton, 1980).…”

Fabricating the Market: The Promotion of Life Assurance in the Long Nineteenth‐Century

“…This building has been described as following the style of William Chambers (architect of Somerset House on the nearby Strand), but it also bears a striking resemblance to William Kent's influential Treasury building on Whitehall (Dodsworth 2005: 287, Figure 2) and is also close in style to George Dance's Mansion House which was such a symbol of the authority of the City. The Treasury and Mansion House are in the Palladian style which drew heavily on the model of the Roman villa, popular amongst both the country and town houses of the aristocracy, standing for order, hierarchy, good government and disinterested public service, the values central to the rural, aristocratic hierarchy (Dodsworth 2005).…”

“…This building has been described as following the style of William Chambers (architect of Somerset House on the nearby Strand), but it also bears a striking resemblance to William Kent's influential Treasury building on Whitehall (Dodsworth 2005: 287, Figure 2) and is also close in style to George Dance's Mansion House which was such a symbol of the authority of the City. The Treasury and Mansion House are in the Palladian style which drew heavily on the model of the Roman villa, popular amongst both the country and town houses of the aristocracy, standing for order, hierarchy, good government and disinterested public service, the values central to the rural, aristocratic hierarchy (Dodsworth 2005). Although his style was more flexible, Rome was also the fundamental reference point for Chambers' Somerset House and both this building and the Treasury not only housed government offices, but they were constructed at periods of great debate about the relationship between government and finance: the Treasury was built during the debates about the “corruption” of the Walpole regime in the 1730s, while Somerset House was constructed during debates about “economical reform” in the 1770s.…”

“…The architectural accomplishment of their building pointed to their own capability and its grandeur and style suggested their importance in the new commercial aristocracy. This was very definitely an urban rather than a rural style, in contrast to the villa which, regardless of its location in town or country, drew upon agrarian tropes concerned with the reality of landed property in order to distance its owner from concerns about the danger of speculation and the “ethereal” nature of commerce (Dodsworth 2005). The Palazzo was a celebration of the new urban mercantile class, the new commercial aristocracy that was (it was felt) coming to dominate English society at the expense of the “old regime” of the landed aristocrat.…”