James Gibbs

Architect, born in Aberdeen, NE Scotland, UK. He studied under Carlo Fontana, in Italy. A friend and disciple of Wren, he became in 1713 one of the commissioners for building new churches in London. His designs included St Mary-le-Strand (1717) and St Martin-in-the-Fields (1726), the latter being perhaps his most influential and attractive work. He was also responsible for St Bartholomew's Hospital (1730). His Book of Architecture (1728) helped to spread the Palladian style, and influenced the design of many churches of the colonial period in America.

James Gibbs (1682-1754) was one of Britain's most influential architects.

James was born to a Roman Catholic family in Aberdeen and studied at Marischal College there, and in Rome under Carlo Fontana. Mar attached Gibbs's name among the list of architects to be responsible for the new churches to be built under the Act for Fifty New Churches.

The circular Radcliffe Camera in Oxford (1739–49) is usually considered Gibbs's finest design;

At Twickenham he designed the pavilion at Orleans House, called the Octagon Room for a Scottish patron, James Johnston (1643 – 1737) Secretary of State for Scotland, about 1718.

Gibbs published a folio of his designs, his Book of Architecture in 1728, and in 1732 the Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture that became part of every carpenter-builder's repertory in the English-speaking world. Gibbs created numerous designs for funeral monuments, often collaborating with the sculptor Michael Rysbrack. In 1735, Gawen Hamilton painted A Conversation of Virtuosis...at the Kings Arms that included Gibbs and Rysbrack, along with other artists who were instrumental in bringing the Rococo style to English design and interiors: George Vertue, the engraver and biographer of artists;