Inigo Jones (July 15, 1573 – June 21, 1652) is regarded as the first significant English architect. He also made valuable contributions to stage design. Beyond the fact that he was born in the vicinity of Smithfield in central London, the son of a Welsh Catholic clothworker, and christened at the church of St Bartholomew the Less, little is known about Jones' early years. But towards the end of the 16th century, he became one of the first Englishmen to study architecture in Italy, making two visits to that country. Jones' best known buildings are the Queen's House at Greenwich, London (started in 1616, his earliest surviving work - pictured right) and the Banqueting House at Whitehall (1619 -- see below) -- part of a major modernisation by him of the Palace of Whitehall -- which also has a ceiling painted by Peter Paul Rubens. The Banqueting House was one of several projects where Jones worked with his personal assistant and son-in-law John Webb.

Portrait by Sir Anthony van Dyck

The other project in which Jones was involved was the design of Covent Garden. He was commissioned by the Earl of Bedford to build a residential square along the lines of an Italian piazza. The Earl felt obliged to provide a church and he warned Jones that he wanted to economise. He told him to simply erect a "barn" and Jones' oft-quoted response was that his lordship would have "the finest barn in Europe". Little remains of the original church situated to the west of the piazza.

As the Surveyor to King Charles I, Jones worked for Queen Henrietta Maria on the design of a Roman Catholic chapel at Somerset House (an act that provoked great suspicion from the Protestants) and his career effectively ended with the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 and the seizure of the King's houses in 1643. His property was later returned to him (c.1646) but Jones ended his days living in Somerset House and was subsequently buried in the Church of St Benet Paul's Wharf, in London. John Denham and then Christopher Wren followed him as King's Surveyor.

Soane and Jones
Sir John Soane (1753 – 1837) referred warmly to Inigo Jones's architecture in his lectures as Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy, remarking on Jones’s ‘superior knowledge in architecture’. His connection with Jones began as a nineteen year old student, when Soane used the opportunity given by scaffolding on the Banqueting House for its repair in 1773 to measure the facade and produce a drawing which won for him the Royal Academy Silver medal (which still hangs in the Breakfast Room of No.12 in the Museum). He could not have dreamt then, that he would be the architect chosen for its restoration over half a century later in 1829-33. The project involved restoring and largely re-facing the façade - and acquiring for his Museum, during the process, one of the original, much decayed pilaster capitals. Also on display in the Museum’s Model Gallery is a 3D analysis of the original Jones’s roof of the Banqueting House – probably commissioned by Soane, like many of his architectural models, for a combination of professional and instructional uses. The original roof was also replaced by Soane. The Museum also owns the original notebook belonging to Nicholas Stone – the sculptor and master craftsman who worked alongside Jones on the Banqueting House and other major commissions – a rare and revealing document for all Inigo Jones scholars.