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Owen Jones (architect)

Owen Jones (15 February 1809 - 19 April 1874) was a British architect and decorative artist .

The son of Owen Jones, a Welsh furrier and antiquary, he was born in London. After an apprenticeship of six years in an architect's office, ie travelled for four years in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Spain, making a special study of the Alhambra. On his return to England in 1836 he busied himself in his professional work. His forte was interior decoration, for which his formula was: "Form without color is like a body without a soul." He was one of the superintendents of works for the Exhibition of 1851 and was responsible for the general decoration of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Along with Digby Wyatt , Jones collected the casts of works of art with which the palace was filled. He died in London in 1874.

Owen Jones was described in the Builder for 1874 as "the most potent apostle of color that architectural England has had in these days." His range of activity is to be traced in his works:

  • Plans, Elevations and Details of the Alhambra (1835-1845), in which he was assisted by MM. Goury and Gayangos
  • Designs for Mosaic and Tesselated Pavements (1842)
  • Polychromatic Ornament of Italy (1845)
  • An Attempt to Define the Principles which regulate the Employment of Color in Decorative Arts (1852)
  • Handbook to the Alhambra Court (1854)
  • Grammar of Ornament (1856), a very important work
  • One Thousand and One Initial Letters (1864)
  • Seven Hundred and Two Monograms (1864)
  • Examples of Chinese Ornament (1867)
Last updated: 05-21-2005 16:13:07
Last updated: 01-04-2007 01:18:57
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