Lot Essay
Sir Charles Barry spent six years with a firm of surveyors where he learnt the practical side of his profession, but otherwise he was largely self-taught. He took himself on an architectural tour of the Continent when he was eighteen years old and it was there that he made studies of the Renaissance architecture of Rome and Florence that became so integral to his style. The work that launched him into the public conscience was his design for the Travellers' Club on Pall Mall, built in the Italianate style. He is perhaps best known for the design competition he won in 1836 for the new Houses of Parliament, unlike the majority of his oeuvre, this building was designed in the Gothic style.