Caruso St John Heong Gallery, Downing College

摘要

Downing is something of an anomaly among Cambridge colleges. Founded in 1800through the bequest made by George Downing, third baronet, whose grandfather had laid out Downing Street, the college is alternately described as the first of the new colleges or the last of the old. Unlike preceding colleges, which had grown up piecemeal over the centuries, Downing was planned as a single, coherent entity by the Neoclassical architect William Wilkins. Only the east and west wings of Wilkins' proposed horseshoe plan were completed, however, with the north wing, which linked the two, having to wait until after the Second World War. Since then, Classicism has remained the college's style of choice. Over the past 30 years it has commissioned a quartet of buildings by Quinlan Terry, the most recent being the Howard Theatre, completed in 2009.