A new exhibition at Castle Howard to celebrate its creator and ‘the Rockstar of the English Baroque’.
Castle Howard presents Staging the Baroque: Vanbrugh at Castle Howard, an exhibition which celebrates its architect, Sir John Vanbrugh.
The exhibition, which opens tomorrow (Friday 26 March), the 300th anniversary of Vanbrugh’s death, will see letters by Vanbrugh on public display for the first time.
Hailed as ‘the original starchitect’, Vanbrugh had concurrent careers as an architect, playwright, adventurer, soldier, spy, diplomat and garden designer.
Castle Howard is celebrating his legacy with exhibitions, installations, workshops, talks and performances across the tercentenary year.
Staging the Baroque explores the moment when an ambitious Vanbrugh encountered the equally ambitious Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, in the confines of the Kit-Cat Club in London.
The Earl wanted to build a grand country house and Vanbrugh’s bold, theatrical vision inspired him to take a chance on this would-be architect who had never built anything before. Vanbrugh enlisted the help of Nicholas Hawksmoor, and the collaboration gave rise to the masterpiece which is Castle Howard.
Designed and curated by architect Roz Barr, the exhibition chronicles the story of this exciting creation and explores Sir John Vanbrugh’s visionary use of scale, shadow and light in the creation of one of Britain’s most iconic stately homes.
The exhibition conveys Vanbrugh’s incredible career as a playwright and
architect and his relationship with the third Earl of Carlisle in creating Castle Howard.
Roz Barr said: “This exhibition celebrates the life and works of John Vanbrugh and the beauty and significance of his work at Castle Howard. The house is possibly his most poetic and enchanting creation, but the building shows not just his skills in creating a Baroque masterpiece but also the intimate relationship between his architecture and the surrounding landscape.
“I hope the exhibition will inspire visitors to explore the grounds and appreciate the impact of the house, with its grand elevations and imposing dome, against a backdrop of trees, water, sculpture, and other buildings such as his Temple of the Four Winds and more distant monuments.”
Find out more at Castle Howard’s website.
Take a look inside the exhibtion in the gallery below.
Gallery
