Sir John Vanbrugh:
Storyteller in Stone

Vaughan Hart

Price
£40
Type
Print
Publicaton Date
May 2008
Standard Number
9780300119299
Distributor
Yale University Press
Specifications
256 pages

This engaging and beautifully illustrated book looks at the remarkable life and work of Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726)—by turns businessman, soldier, playwright, and (despite lacking either training or qualifications) the architect of some of the most important country houses of his era. Architectural historian Vaughan Hart examines Vanbrugh’s surviving, destroyed, and unrealized buildings—among them Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace—outlining the contemporary political and social events that influenced their design and showing how these strikingly original buildings can be interpreted through reference to classical mythology, Renaissance fortifications, and medieval houses.