Bryon Nearman, age 16, of Willingboro, N.J., for his question:
WHO WAS CHRISTOPHER WREN?
Christopher Wren is considered one of England's foremost architects. In addition, he was a famous scientist and mathematician. He lived from 1632 to 1723.
Wren's work, in a simple version of the baroque style, displayed great inventiveness in design and engineering. His style strongly influenced English architecture in the Georgian period and its colonial version in America.
He was a precocious child with remarkable talent for science and mathematics and had already invented numerous scientific devices before he was 14 years old. At that age he was admitted to Oxford University where he made several original contributions in mathematics, winning immediate acclaim.
After serving as a fellow at Oxford, he was appointed professor of astronomy at Gresham College in London. Three years later he returned to Oxford to accept the post of professor of astronomy.
Already famous as a scientist and mathematician, Wren started his career as an architect at the age of 29. His earliest works included designs for several new structures at Oxford and Cambridge.
In 1667, at the age of 35, he was appointed deputy survey general for the reconstruction of Saint Paul's Cathedral and two years later received the coveted post of Surveyor of the Royal Works, a position that gave him control of all government buildings in Britain. He held this position for the following 50 years.
Wren's designs for Saint Paul's were accepted and the vast baroque structure was completed in 1710. It ranks as one of the world's most imposing domed edifices.
Wren, over the years, designed more than 50 churches. Many of them are famous for their towers and graceful spires.
Among Wren's secular buildings still in existence are the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, the Trinity College library at at Cambridge and the facades for Hampton Court Palace. He also built the Chelsea Hospital, the Greenwich Hospital and the Greenwich Observatory.
Wren's sense of mathematical proportion can be seen in the dome of Saint Paul's. he also had a baroque sense of the dramatic and a good craftsman's insistence on quality in the execution of classical decorative detail.
Wren was knighted in 1673. He subsequently served for many years a member of Parliament. He was also one of the founders of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.
Sir Christopher Wren died at the age of 91 and was buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral. Near his tomb is a tablet inscribed with his epitaph, which ends with following famous words: "Si monumentum requires, circumspice." Translated it says: "If you seek his monument, look about you."