From Soane to Ledoux and and Back: A Lecture by Anthony Vidler

Historian Anthony Vidler speaks to his lifetime passion for the architecture of Sir John Soane, beginning with a childhood visit to the Soane Museum that led to a career in research and teaching — and to the work of another great architect, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806). The journey leads from the office of Dorothy Stroud, former Inspectress of the Museum, to Ledoux’s Saline d’Arc-et-Senans (pictured above), and then to the connections, personal and intellectual, between Ledoux and Soane, joined by their common architectural and mystical experiences with the mercurial figure of William Beckford. Both Soane and Ledoux shared a vision of architecture inspired by the Enlightenment’s search for origins. Their experiments in simple geometrical forms were founded on a deep belief in the lessons of history and the role of architecture in society — questions that have continued to preoccupy their successors, from Louis I. Kahn and Michael Graves to James Stirling and Raphael Moneo.

About the 2020-2021 Soane Lecture Series: Color and Light

In 1780, John Soane returned from the Grand Tour with a fresh eye for light and color — daylight streaming through an oculus, marbles aglow in amber dusk, a rich red fragment of wall plaster from Pompeii. In the years that followed, Soane became obsessed with light and the effects it could produce, deploying colored and stained glass, richly pigmented surfaces, and increasingly inventive lighting strategies throughout his interiors to generate dramatic, ever-changing scenes.

Today, Sir John Soane’s Museum in London stands as a testament to the architect’s bravura manipulation of color and light, brimming with “exquisite hues and magical effects” (in the words of Soane’s friend, the novelist Barbara Hofland) enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year. Inspired by Soane, our 2020-2021 lecture series considers the interplay of light and color across periods and disciplines, from Soane’s world to the arenas of art, architecture, and design in the twenty-first century.