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Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. Vanbrugh 300 is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to develop a nationwide project that aims to broaden the awareness of Vanbrugh through special displays, free education programmes and lectures, throughout his tercentenary year in 2026.
Tuesday 24th February, 5.00 - 6.30pm
Garden Quad Auditorium, St John's College, Oxford
Professor Anthony Geraghty's lecture will revisit one of the great moments in British architectural history – the emergence of the English baroque style in the years around 1700. It will look afresh at the principal architects involved – Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor, and John Vanbrugh – and it will offer new interpretations of their haunting, compelling designs. More specifically, the lecture will show how each of these architects grounded their work in a distinctive set of philosophical first principles, and how it was the coming together of these discrete artistic personalities that brought the English baroque into being. The lecture will thereby revisit two of the main research areas associated with Sir Howard Colvin: the centrality of the Office of Works in the history of British architecture, and the place of biographical analysis within the discipline of architectural history.
