John Summerson

Who was John Summerson?

Sir John Newenham Summerson CH CBE was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century.

He was born at Barnstead, Coniscliffe Road, Darlington. His grandfather worked for the Darlington and Stockton Railway and founded the family foundry of Thomas Summerson and Sons in Darlington in 1869. John Summerson was educated at Harrow and University College London, where he gained a bachelor's degree in 1928. He wrote mainly about British architecture, especially that of the Georgian era. His Architecture in Britain: 1530-1830 remained a standard work on the subject for students and general readers after his death. The Classical Language of Architecture is an introduction to the stylistic elements of classical architecture and traces their use and variation in different eras. He also wrote many more specialised works, including books about Inigo Jones and Georgian London, as well as The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, in which he describes Boullée in a distinct positive manner, stating that Boullée was clearly the point of departure for one of the boldest innovators of the century--Claude Nicolas Ledoux.