Buckingham Palace

Royal Palace on The Mall, Westminster

Buckingham Palace was designed as a palace for George IV in 1825 by John Nash, who began rebuilding the earlier Buckingham House of 1705 in 1826. The work was completed in 1837 with alterations by Edward Blore. The east range was added between 1847 and 1850 by Blore; the Ballroom block with Ambassadors' Court was constructed in 1853–54 by Sir James Pennethorne; and the east front was refaced in 1913 by Sir Aston Webb for George V.

The palace is constructed principally in Bath stone, with the east front faced in marble, Blore's west quadrangle front in Caen stone, and slate and leaded roofs. It is planned around a quadrangle.

The architectural composition is monumental Graeco-Roman in style, conceived by Nash with picturesque intent. Webb's east front represents a restrained 18th-century French exercise, constrained by Blore's existing range but detailed with elegance. It comprises three storeys with ground and attic floor mezzanines, with fenestration arranged in the rhythm 3:7:3:7:3. The centrepiece and terminal pavilions feature this fenestration pattern. The ground floor is channelled with a semicircular arched central gateway flanked by square-headed doorways, all with fine ornamental iron gates of 1847. End pavilions and the main range have square-headed and semicircular arched gateways respectively. The upper storeys have architraved sashes with open pediments on the first floor and cornices on the second. Fluted Corinthian pilasters rise through the first and second floors, supporting a main entablature with blocking course and balustraded parapet. The centrepiece and terminal pavilions feature Corinthian columns in antis with plain outer pilasters in pairs on the centrepiece, crowned by blind attics with pediments. A continuous balustraded balcony runs along the first floor.

The west front employs Blore's east range, with an advanced centrepiece carrying a tetrastyle giant fluted Corinthian column portico above an archway and sculpture in the pediment.

The north and south quadrangle ranges were designed by Nash and given uniform three-storey height with attic by him in 1828. They feature slightly advanced five-window-wide pilastered centrepieces. The ground floor originally had Greek Doric colonnades, later filled in by Blore. To the south, Ambassadors' Court is articulated with a temple portico-porch and flanking ranges with Corinthian colonnade in antis, adjoining Pennethorne's 1853–54 Ballroom block, which continues the giant columned corner pavilion theme of Nash's garden front.

The east front of Nash's west range, originally open to a deep forecourt and The Mall, comprises a main block of eleven windows wide with three-storey three-window wings. The main block features a prominent tetrastyle two-storey portico centrepiece. The lower storey has cast iron coupled Greek Doric columns; the upper has giant coupled stone Corinthian columns carrying an entablature and pediment with sculpture by Baily and crowning figures in Coade stone by W. Croggan. A cast iron Doric colonnade returns across the ground floor of the main block, which has pavilion end bays dressed with giant pairs of Corinthian columns. A tall blind attic surmounts the composition. The friezes flanking the portico are by Westmacott and were originally intended for the attic of Marble Arch.

The west garden front, designed by Nash, is a long symmetrical composition with five accents. The main block extends through basement, ground floor, piano nobile over two storeys and attic, flanked by three-storey wings. The main block contains a five-window central bow with three-window side ranges terminating in one-window pavilions. The wings each comprise four windows with similar pavilion end bays. The ground floor is channelled, with giant engaged Corinthian columns to the bow and detached coupled Corinthian columns to the pavilions, carrying an entablature with rich rinceau frieze. Large frieze panels of Coade stone over the first floor, by Croggan, face outward. The attic above the half dome of the bow—a Blore replacement of Nash's original dome—features a frieze by Westmacott also intended for Marble Arch. The range is flanked at the east of the terrace by projecting conservatories in the form of hexastyle Ionic temples with pediments. The south conservatory was altered as the palace chapel in 1893 and as the Queen's Gallery in 1962.

Interior

The State Apartments are located on the first floor of the west range, comprising two suites divided by the Picture Gallery, which was designed circa 1829–36 by Nash and Blore in a rich and already eclectic Graeco-Roman style incorporating Louis XIV and Wren details in mouldings and motifs. The apartments are approached via the Grand Hall, which contains marble columns and Nash's recasting of the original Buckingham House staircase, as well as by Pennethorne's Grand Staircase to the south, which was extended by Pennethorne to provide access to the Ballroom block. The Picture Gallery was redecorated in 1914. The interior of the Ballroom retains Pennethorne's ceiling and throne recess but was redecorated by Ludwig Gruner in 1902, when the walls, windows and doorways were remodelled by Verity. The plainer ground floor rooms below the State Apartments survive virtually as designed by Nash.

Marble Arch, designed by Nash in 1828 as the forecourt gateway, was displaced by Blore's east range and re-erected at its present site in 1851.