Westminster Abbey PopArc

This architectural object is inspired by Westminster Abbey — the Gothic church that has stood at the centre of English and British national life for nearly a thousand years, and the site of every coronation since 1066.

The Abbey's famous west front is the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor, appointed Surveyor of the Abbey in 1723 and the architect of Christ Church Spitalfields and St Mary Woolnoth. His twin towers — Gothic in silhouette, Baroque in their underlying discipline — were completed in 1745, nine years after his death, to his own designs. They finish a building begun five centuries earlier, and most people never suspect the join.

Read the full Westminster Abbey architecture guide

 

Westminster Abbey's west front, captured in dimensional relief

 

This object captures the architectural essence of Westminster Abbey's celebrated west front — Hawksmoor's towers, the great west window between them, and the deep vertical rhythm of buttress and pinnacle — modelled in plaster and presented as a framed wall piece. Unlike a print, the façade has genuine three-dimensional depth: the towers and tracery cast real shadow, and the piece changes character through the day as the light moves across it, just as the Portland stone original does.

 

Sits naturally within:

 

• A study, library, or home office where architectural depth rewards daily attention
• A gift for anyone with a connection to Westminster, London's history, or English Gothic architecture
• An interior that calls for something with genuine presence — relief and shadow rather than a flat graphic

 

Seven centuries, one west front

 

Westminster Abbey has been under construction, in one form or another, since Henry III began the present church in 1245. Hawksmoor's towers are its final chapter — a Baroque architect completing a Gothic building, choosing continuity over fashion, and producing something that belongs entirely to both traditions. As a PopArc, the Abbey's west front becomes an object to live with: a piece of architectural sculpture that carries that long history in plaster and shadow.

 

Product details

 

• Subject: Westminster Abbey, London, England
• Architect: Nicholas Hawksmoor (west towers, 1735–1745)
• Architectural style: Gothic; west towers in Gothic idiom by a Baroque architect
• Completed: 1745 (west towers)
• Format: Framed PopArc wall piece, cast in plaster
• Designed and made by: Chisel & Mouse, West Sussex

 

Read the full Westminster Abbey architecture guide