Soane’s design for the Bank of England, his addition to the Law Courts, even his own home—each of these buildings received blunt, and often scornful, judgments from critics. Public opinion in early nineteenth-century London circulated through a whirl of newspapers, magazines, broadsheets, and pamphlets. Among the topics avidly debated in their pages was architecture, from designs exhibited at the Royal Academy to new buildings erected on the streets of London. John Soane was particularly attuned to the caprices of this new medium of ideas, gossip, and influence—among the many remarkable objects in the Soane Museum are scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings that caught Soane’s attention for one reason or another. This talk will explore Soane’s encounter with the emerging realm of public opinion, in which he was a keen participant sensitive to every praise and every censure. So sensitive, in fact, that he and his architecture would play an important but little-known role in the formulation of new legal standards of criticism and libel.

About the Speaker: Timothy Hyde is Professor of the history of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the political dimensions of architecture from the eighteenth century to the present, with a particular attention to relationships of architecture and law. His most recent book is Ugliness and Judgment: On Architecture in the Public Eye.

Join us for a light reception immediately after the talk.

*PLEASE NOTE: coat and tie required, and no jeans or sneakers.