John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture

Thu 20 Nov 2025 12.00pm

Tickets: £5

To coincide with the publication of his book John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture Charles Saumarez Smith will give a lunchtime talk on Vanbrugh’s extraordinary life: his upbringing; why he spent so much time in a French gaol; the writing of The Relapse and The Provoked Wife; and how he came to design Castle Howard with no previous experience of architecture. 

Saumarez Smith will give particular attention to Vanbrugh’s work as a theatrical impresario and the designer of the Queen’s Theatre Haymarket so disastrous as a venue for plays but where all of Handel’s early operas were performed. He will then describe Vanbrugh’s quarrel with the Duchess of Marlborough and his later work as an architect at King’s Weston Claremont Grimsthorpe Seaton Delaval and Stowe. In recent years Vanbrugh’s reputation as an architect has been eclipsed by his subordinate Nicholas Hawksmoor. This talk and the accompanying book will explain Vanbrugh’s originality and influence on later architects from Robert Adam to Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

Charles Saumarez Smith is a writer curator and art historian. He has served as Director of the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery London as Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts London as Professor of Architectural History at the Royal Academy of Arts and Chairman of The Royal Drawing School and The Watercolour World. He is currently a Trustee of the Garden Museum and Emeritus Trustee of ArtUK and Charleston.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase in the Foyer at a special price.

Tickets are available on the Wigmore Hall website

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