Professor 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.

Anthony Geraghty is Professor of the History of Art at the University of York. He is best known for his work on Sir Christopher Wren and the architecture of the English baroque, including a catalogue of the Wren drawings at All Souls College, Oxford (2007) and a history of Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford (2013). His most recent book is a study of the Empress Eugénie in England (2022).