chiswick house

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s from Lord Burlington’s grand tours travelling through the Low Countries and the Rhineland and spending four months in Rome, he designed the first and one of the finest examples of neo-Palladian architecture in England. The third Earl of Burlington, Richard Boyle, gained advice from his protégé, architect, painter and garden designer William Kent for the design of Chiswick House. Chiswick House provides an elegant setting for certain gatherings of his family, friends and cultural circle, and for Burlington’s grand collection of paintings and architectural drawings.
The Burlington’s villa stood alongside the old Jacobean house for the first few years. The old Jacobean house was purchased by his grandfather in 1682. A two-storey link was added around 1732 when the separation was proved impractical. After the death of Earl in 1753, the estate was passed to a few different Dukes with several remodeling of the gardens and the house. In 1948, the restoration campaign of returning the villa to its original design and size, and rehabilitate the original layout of the garden.
The house fell into decline during the 19th century, dodged from being demolished; the house was rented out and used as a hospital from 1892. In 1929, the 9th Duke of Devonshire sold the Chiswick House to Middlesex County Council and it became a fire station. During World War II, the villa encounter damages and one of the two wings was damaged by a V-2 rocket in 1944. The wings were demolished in 1956. Today, the house is a listed building and maintained by English Heritage.
According to the architectural historian Richard Hewlings, Chiswick House was an attempt to create a roman villa instead of Renaissance pastiche by Lord Burlington, located in a Roman garden. Se...

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... Lord Burlington for building his villa has never been acknowledged and received much speculation. . For most of the time, Burlington's motive for his new building remains a mystery. What can be said is that the villa was never intended for occupation as it contained space for only three beds on the ground floor and no kitchen installed. It is possible that one of the purposes of the Villa was as an art gallery, as inventories show more than 167 paintings hanging at Chiswick House in Lord Burlington's lifetime, where many were purchased on his two Grand Tours of Europe.

Works Cited

Bibiography
T.Barnard and J.Clark, 1995. Lord Burlington: Architecture, Art and Life. London.
J.Harris, 1994. The palladian Revival: Lord Burlington, His Villa and Garden at Chiswick. New Heaven and London.
White Roger, 2001. Chiswick House and Gardens. (English Heritage guide book)

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