epistolary architecture the transatlantic design network, 1768-1838
by danielle s willkens
Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of windy day never to return-- more. Every thing presses on—
— from Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy , 3rd ed., 9 vols. (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1760-1767), 2:VIII.
Although these borrowed lines may read as the preface to a romantic saga, this article does not tell the story of a love triangle or an affair. Rather, this is the story of a series of architectural relationships: two architects, from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and their respective meetings with a young, charismatic artist that sparked forty-year friendships and how this triumvirate formed the core of a generative and active network of peers who spent decades sharing letters, drawings, and design ideas across borders and continents. The architects were Thomas Jefferson and Sir John Soane; their shared aesthete was Maria Hadfield Cosway. Much has been written about the probability of a romantic relationship between Jefferson and Cosway and the obsession over their imagined affair is understandable given the famously passionate nature of their early letters. Nevertheless, this story does not focus on their possible affair but rather their shared ardour for aesthetics and architecture. The lines above from Tristram Shandy are particularly relevant to a discussion of Jefferson and Soane in relation to their first meetings with Cosway: both meetings were brief but for decades the friends would relive their travels together through the pages of letters that travelled across countries and continents. Both Jefferson and Soane were reading Tristram Shandy around the time they first met Cosway. It is curious to imagine that Jefferson and Soane, both of whom generally favoured works of non-fiction, poured over Sterne’s brilliant line diagrams that illustrate the meandering paths of Tristram’s narrative like a section through a wild and imaginative landscape. As the reader progresses through the course of Tristam’s ‘autobiography’, the digressions within his narrative, represented as sinuous curves or abrupt peaks and valleys in the literal plot line, are the most pivotal elements his journey. Much like Tristram, the meetings of Jefferson and Soane with Cosway could be dismissed as insignificant detours along their professional paths; however, these supposed diversions were significant experiences for the architects that, like their correspondence with Cosway, stayed with Jefferson and Soane for the rest of their lives.
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Danielle Willkens
From top down, timelines of the lives of Jefferson, Soane and Cosway in the style of Sterne’s plot line diagrams in Tristam Shandy , drawn by author. The upstrokes represent times of professional success, the flourishes represent significant meetings or events, and downstrokes represent the death of a significant loved one.
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