Weir, Robert Weir Schultz

views updated May 17 2018

Weir, Robert Weir Schultz ( Robert Weir Schultz until 1915) (1860–1951). Scots-born Arts-and-Crafts architect. Articled to Rowand Anderson, he later joined the office of Norman Shaw, where he met Lethaby, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. After a period in the office of Ernest George and Peto, he set up his own practice in London (1890) and worked on several buildings for the 3rd (1847–1900) and 4th (1881–1947) Marquesses of Bute, including the reconstruction of Wester Kames Tower, Isle of Bute (1897–1900). Weir studied Byzantine architecture with Lethaby and Sidney Barnsley (with whom he collaborated on The Monastery of St Luke … in Phocis (1901)), and was a leading light in the Byzantine Revival. His Byzantine studies led to the creation of the Chapel of St Andrew and the Saints of Scotland in Bentley's Westminster Cathedral (1910–15). His greatest work is probably the Anglican Cathedral Church of All Saints, Khartoum, Sudan (1906–13), which deserves to be considered, with Lethaby's Brockhampton, Prior and A. R. Wells's Roker, and Bellot's Quarr Abbey, as among the most successful C20 church buildings. One of its most interesting features is the clerestorey, consisting of a series of triangular arches based on Anglo-Saxon exemplars. He had a thriving country- house practice before 1914, but he also designed economical housing at Gretna Green, Scotland (1914–18—under the general direction of Unwin), and built an extension to a barn at Hartley Wintney, Hanpts. (1903–12), as his own home. Like many Arts- and-Crafts architects, he worked with several styles, drawing on many sources, and his smaller domestic buildings were invariably agreeable.

Bibliography

AH, xxii (1979), 88–116;
B. Clarke (1958);
A. S. Gray (1985);
Ottewill (1989);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Stamp (1981)

Schultz, Robert Weir

views updated Jun 08 2018

Schultz, Robert Weir (1861–1951). See Weir, Robert Weir Schultz.