• Thursday 9th November 2017, 6.30pm
• Tessa Blackstone Lecture Theatre [11_0003]

Nicholas Hawksmoor (1662–1736) is considered one of Britain’s greatest architects. He was involved in the grandest architectural projects of his age and today is best known for his London churches – six idiosyncratic edifices of white Portland stone that remain standing today, proud and tall in the otherwise radically changed cityscape. Until comparatively recently, however, Hawksmoor was thought to be, at best, a second-rate talent: merely Sir Christopher Wren’s slightly odd apprentice, or the practically minded assistant to Sir John Vanbrugh. In this lecture, Owen Hopkins brings to life the dramatic story of Hawksmoor’s resurrection from the margins of history, charting how his architecture came to inspire observers as diverse as T. S. Eliot, James Stirling, Robert Venturi and Peter Ackroyd, and continues to catch the eye of architects today.

Owen Hopkins is a writer, historian and curator of architecture. He is Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum. Prior to that he was Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. A frequent contributor to the architectural press, Hopkins is author of five books, including From the Shadows: The Architecture and Afterlife of Nicholas Hawksmoor (2015). His most recent book is Lost Futures: The Disappearing Architecture of Post-War Britain (2017).