Richard Norman Shaw

Richard Norman Shaw (Edinburgh May 7, 1831 – London November 17, 1912), was the most influential British architect from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings.

Related Topics:
Edinburgh - May 7 - 1831 - London - November 17 - 1912 - 1870s - 1900s

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He trained in the London office of William Burn and with George Edmund Street and attended the Royal Academy classes, receiving a thorough grounding in classicism and met William Eden Nesfield, with whom he was briefly in partnership. In 1854 – 1856 he travelled with a Royal Academy scholarship, collecting sketches that were published as Architectural Sketches from the Continent, 1858.

Related Topics:
William Burn - George Edmund Street - William Eden Nesfield - 1854 - 1856 - 1858

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In 1863, after sixteen years of training, he opened a practise, for a short time with Nesfield. In 1872, Shaw was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and a full member in 1877.

Related Topics:
1863 - 1872 - Royal Academy - 1877

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Besides the large country houses he is associated with, he also built and restored several churches, the best known of which are St. John's Church, Leeds; St. Margaret's, Ilkley, and All Saints, Leek.

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His picturesque early country houses avoided the current Neo-Gothic and the academic styles, reviving vernacular materials like half timber and hanging tiles, with projecting gables and tall massive chimneys with "inglenooks" for warm seating. The result was free and fresh, not slavishly imitating his Jacobean and vernacular models, yet warmly familiar, a parallel to the Arts and Crafts movement. Richard Norman Shaw's houses soon attracted the misnomer the "Queen Anne style". As he developed, he dropped some of the mannered detailing As his powers developed, his buildings gained in dignity, and had an air of serenity and a quiet homely charm which were less conspicuous in his earlier works; the. half timber was more sparingly used, and finally disappeared entirely.

Related Topics:
Neo-Gothic - Inglenooks - Jacobean - Arts and Crafts movement - Queen Anne style

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His work is characterised by ingenious open planning, the Great Hall or "sitting hall," with a staircase running up the side that became familiar in mass-producing housing of the 1890s.

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