Jacques Jules Gabriel
architect; b. April 6, 1667; d. April 23, 1742.
Jacques Jules was a son of Jacques Gabriel (II). In 1709 he was created contrôleur des bâtiments at Versailles and architecte ordinaire du roi. Between 1728 and 1733 he built the Hôtel Dieu at Orléans (Loire, France), and in 1727 made plans for the reconstruction of the public buildings of the city of Rennes which had been burned in 1720. In 1730 he made plans for the Palais Royal at Bordeaux (Gironde, France), which was completed in 1749. He began also the exchange and customhouse in that city, which were finished by his son Jacques Ange. In 1738 Gabriel commenced the restoration of the Hôtel des Comptes, Paris. This building, remodelled by Louis Joseph Duc for the prefecture of police, was destroyed by the commune in 1871.
James Gibbs
architect; b. December 26, 1682 (at Aberdeen, Scotland) ; d. August 5, 1754.
He was the son of Peter Gibbs, a Roman Catholic merchant of Aberdeen, and took his M. A. degree at Marischal College, Aberdeen. After the death of his parents he entered the service of a builder in Holland. He was discovered by John Erskine, eleventh Earl of Mar, who sent him to Rome, where he entered the school of Carlo Fontana, surveyor general to Pope Clement XI. Returning to London in 1709, he won the friendship of Sir Christopher Wren. The church of S. Mary le Strand was begun by Gibbs February 15, 1714. August, 1721, he began for Harley, Earl of Oxford, the church of S. Peter, Vere Street, London, and a little later the tomb of Matthew Prior, in the south transept of Westminster Abbey. March 19, 1722, the first stone was laid for his famous church of S. Martin's in the Fields, and June 22, 1722, he began the "Senate House" in Cambridge. In 1723-1725 he built the church of Allhallows in Derby (except the tower). Gibbs prepared a scheme for rebuilding the quadrangle of King's College, Cambridge. Only the western side was carried out. The quadrangle of S. Bartholomew's hospital was begun by him June 9, 1730. The first stone of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, his best building, was laid June 16, 1737. It was built from a fund of £40,000, left by John Radclifte, M.D. Gibbs's books and drawings are preserved at Oxford. He published A Book of Architecture containing designs by James Gibbs, 1 vol. folio, 1728; The Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture, 1732; Bibliotheca Radcliffiana, 1747.
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