The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1661, followed closely by the Great Fire of London in 1666, meant an extensive building programme for the church, monarchy and state. The illustrated exercises carried out by Bauhaus students have been chosen for their focus on spatial experimentation with line, colour and form. He had benefited from, and contributed to, a design studio that was a place of learning and teaching. The school’s radical teachers and innovative teaching methods were hugely influential. Wren was a particularly skilled collaborator and created a long-standing and successful working relationship with several architects in his office, in particular Nicholas Hawksmoor. The term tracery may come from the ‘tracing floors’ on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out before being lifted into place. Hawksmoor rose from the position of clerk to architect and worked with Wren on projects such as St Paul’s Cathedral. Bourges Cathedral
Survey by John Harvey of stone tracery sketched by masons directly on to the floor of Bourges Cathedral, France, in the 12th century. This was a huge undertaking for Wren and it was necessary for him to delegate the design and management of projects to fellow professionals. The Office of Works developed a studio culture of coherent working methods and a shared theory of architecture.
