Royalty and Architecture

It is well known that, throughout history, royalty have built castles, fortresses and entire cities. However, less consideration has been given to individual monarchs who pursued an interest in architecture and in some cases acted as architects. Recent research on Gustav III of Sweden (1746–1792) has shown that he was in fact the architect of a number of important building projects. George III of Britain (1738–1820) also had a great interest in architecture, and his drawings and sketches have been preserved. Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) was greatly involved in shaping the palace and garden at Versailles. And Stanisław II August’s (1732–1798) interest in architectural work had a major impact on the neoclassical style in Poland.

Clive Aslet, writer on British architecture and life, and Visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Dr Frank Salmon, Associate Professor of History of Art at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at St John’s College, Cambridge. Since 2021 Dr Salmon is director at the Cambridge based Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture. Elisabeth Kieven studied art history, history and archaeology at the Universities of Münster, Bonn, Munich, and Vienna. Her research on the Italian architect Alessandro Galilei (1691–1737), carried out in Dublin, London, Florence and Rome, resulted in a doctoral thesis completed in 1977 at the University of Bonn. From 1978–1985 she was a senior fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Institute for Art History) in Rome, and in 1984 also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 1991 she presented her Habilitation thesis on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architectural drawings in Rome at the University of Augsburg. After teaching at the University of Stuttgart, in 1994 she became professor of art history at the University of Tübingen. In 1998–1999 she was Dean of the faculty of Cultural Sciences. From 1999 until her retirement in 2014 she was co-director of the Bibliotheca Hertziana. Barbara Arciszewska is Professor at the Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw, and a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art and the University of Toronto. She was previously a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Post-Graduate Fellow, a Research Fellow at the Yale Center for British Art, a Visiting Scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal as well as a Visiting Professor at Indiana University (Bloomington). Her work focuses on theory and practice of architecture in early modern Europe, and her publications include books, such as Classicism and Modernity. Architectural Thought in Eighteenth-century Britain (2011), as well as numerous articles and book chapters (recently ‘The Office of the King’s Works and modernization of architectural patronage in 18th century England,’ in: Companion to Architecture in the Age of the Enlightenment (2017), and ‘Religious architecture in early modern Poland, 1500-1800,’ in: Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity (2022). She is currently engaged in the European research project PALAMUSTO, which develops multidisciplinary approaches to study of early modern residences. Julius Bryant is Keeper Emeritus of the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he was formerly Keeper of Word and Image (2005-21), with responsibility for paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, the National Art Library and the V&A+RIBA Partnership. As Chief Curator at English Heritage he contributed to the restoration of Osborne House between 1990 and 2005, in collaboration with the Royal Collection. His publications include Creating the V&A: Victoria and Albert's Museum (1851–1861) (London,2019).