st.george hanover square, westminster, london

built in 1712-24 by john james as one of the 50 planned churches of the 1711 tory commission , with a good portico and a heavily articulated north face, but let down like all of james' work by areas of design weakness, which just show how easy hawksmoor made it seem. here the tower in particular seems not just dull but irrelevant, pulling against the horizontals of attic and cornice, copying gibbs' irrationality by floating unrelatedly above the portico. the plan and eastern elevation make clear james' inability to bring a sense of excitement to the relationships between spaces , masses and voids that should be the hall mark of a great baroque building, which needs to be more than the sum of its parts. nice portico, bitty church.