The Sheldonian Theatre, located in Oxford, England, was built from 1664 to 1669 after a design by Christopher Wren for the University of Oxford. The building is named after Gilbert Sheldon, chancellor of the University at the time and the project's main financial backer. It is used for music concerts, lectures and University ceremonies, but not for drama until 2015 when the Christ Church Dramatic Society staged a production of The Crucible.
Like any Mediterranean theatre of that time, the Theatre of Marcellus had no roof: the audience relied on a temporary awning for inclement weather. But 17th century Oxford was not ancient Rome, and the Theatre needed a permanent roof. The span of the D-shaped roof was over 70 feet (21 m). However, no timbers existed that were long enough to cross that distance, and Wren dismissed the obvious solution of a Gothic roof. Instead, he decided to use the "geometrical flat floor" grid developed twenty years before by Oxford professor John Wallis.
It involved
... creating a series of trusses which were built up from shorter section and held in place by their own weight, with help from judiciously placed iron bolts and plates ... o effective was the roof that for nearly a century the University Press stored its books ..., and for many years it was the largest unsupported floor in existence ...
In 1720, surveyors inspecting the roof, following a rumour that it was no longer safe, were both surprised and impressed at what they discovered. Though sagging slightly from the massive weight of books, the inspectors pronounced that "... the whole Fabrick of the said Theatre is, in our Opinion, like to remain and continue in such Repair and Condition, for one hundred or two hundred Years yet to come."
The Clarendon Building is an early 18th-century neoclassical building of the University of Oxford. It is in Broad Street, Oxford, England, next to the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre and near the centre of the city. It was built between 1711 and 1715 and is now a Grade I listed building.
Until the early 18th century the printing presses of the Oxford University Press (OUP) were in the basement of the Sheldonian Theatre. This meant that the compositors could not work when the Theatre was in use for ceremonies. The University therefore commissioned a new building to house the OUP.