John Vanbrugh: The Critical Response - A Georgian Group Lecture

During Vanbrugh’s lifetime, his architecture was much mocked, hated by the Duchess of Marlborough and regarded by Jonathan Swift as the work of a child; but not long after his death, architects began to look at his work with admiration, including William Chambers who wrote of the ‘air of grandeur and novelty to his compositions that will always be admired by men of true judgement’. Soane lectured the students of the Royal Academy on the virtues of his work and, on visiting Castle Howard, C.R. Cockerell admired its ‘Vast effect, movement in staircases &c. good effect of long passages in entering’. In this talk, Charles Saumarez Smith looks at changes to Vanbrugh’s reputation ahead of his forthcoming book, John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture, and his tercentenary next year.