Louvre and Versailles

About Christopher Tadgell

Christopher Tadgell studied art history at the Courtauld Institute in London and in 1974 was awarded his PhD for his thesis on Ange-Jacques Gabriel, principal architect to Louis XV of France. For three decades from the early 1970s he developed the comprehensive survey course in architectural history for the Canterbury School of Architecture – beginning with revision of the prevailing Eurocentric scope to embrace Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic traditions. Throughout this time French Classical architecture continued to be his main research field but his work on India was the outcome of a life-long fascination with the subcontinent and the perceived need for a one-volume account of its complex architectural history accessible to students. He has lectured on both French and Indian subjects in London and Cambridge and in the United States at Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Charlottesville, Louisville (where he was F.L. Morgan Professor of Architectural Design in 1985) and Princeton (where he is a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study).

His several publications on French architecture began with the standard account in Baroque and Rococo Architecture and Decoration (ed. Blunt, London 1978). His seven-volume series Architecture in Context is an unmatched survey of the seminal architectural traditions from the earliest times to the end of the 20th century: French architecture features prominently in all four volumes covering the sequential periods from the early Middle Ages. In particular, moreover, he has contributed articles on French architecture to The Grove Dictionary of Art and other major reference books, including the most recent revision of Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture.