Firstly there is the unity in things whereby each thing is at one with itself, consists of itself and coheres with itself. Secondly there is the unity whereby one creature is united with the others and all parts of the world constitute one world.

The Tempietto, the tiny monument commemorating St Peter’s martyrdom by the side of the church of S. Pietro in Montorio (Figs 1 & 2), has been praised as a model of perfection and a landmark in the history of architecture ever since its completion in the early sixteenth century. None the less some aspects of Bramante’s achievement remain obscure because they cannot be appreciated without knowing the dimensions that he intended, a knowledge which so far has been incomplete.

Lulworth Castle served no defensive purpose. Its impressive, crenellated bulk is in fact an early seventeenth-century essay in nostalgia, a stage setting for the idealized world of chivalry portrayed in Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queen’. The cult of a romantic medievalism was courtly in origin and Lulworth, built as an ostentatious hunting lodge for a nobleman currying favour with the king, could be seen as a specialized offshoot of the great courtier houses of the period. Although garrisoned during the Civil War, Lulworth saw no action and by the end of the century the Castle had become the country house of the Welds. This family was Roman Catholic and the history of the Castle after they purchased it reflects both the handicaps and solaces of a faith forced into retreat.

Nicholas Hawksmoor is usually seen as the antithesis of the English neo-Palladians. The unprecedented originality of Christ Church, Spitalfields, and St George-in-the-East has little in common with the carefully derived compositions of Colen Campbell or Lord Burlington. Lord Shaftesbury, often seen as the harbinger of neo-Palladianism, condemned the sterility of Wren’s court-based architecture, much of which involved Hawksmoor, and, without mentioning its name, Blenheim Palace, designed by Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh in collaboration. Campbell’s neo-Palladian manifesto, the Introduction to Vitmvius Britannicus, attacked the ‘odd and chimerical Beauties’ of Borromini, and so by inference, it is assumed, Hawksmoor, the only English architect whose attitude to the Classical orders was as unrestrained as Borromini’s. Because of this, because Hawksmoor was dismissed from his main posts in the Office of Works by the neo-Palladians, and because Lord Burlington criticized his lack of architectural purity, the links between Hawksmoor and the neo-Palladians have never been given the detailed consideration they deserve.

It is not the purpose of this short article to announce a new discovery or to draw new conclusions, but to make readily available a document of considerable significance to all concerned with the development of the eighteenth-century provincial town house.

The third Earl of Burlington is generally recognized as the moving power behind the flourishing of neo-palladian architecture in Britain during the first half of the eighteenth century, but his own architecture has been said to be marred by a peculiar stiffness and academicism. This accusation, however frequent, is rarely qualified with any precision; the alleged academicism has been generally explained in terms of Burlington’s strict dependence upon a very limited number of sources, namely Palladio and Inigo Jones, whose authority, according to some scholars, was always sought by the Earl. Such a treatment does not do justice to Burlington, who was in fact a highly original architect using the classical language of architecture in a way which can only be described as innovative. The striking and often jarring quality of his architecture is achieved by producing large surfaces of bare, smooth, astylar wall interrupted only by neatly cut out fenestration and by juxtaposing pure volumes, untrammelled by decoration, so as to achieve a typical staccato quality — first noted by Rudolph Wittkower; and, finally, by avoiding any chiaroscural and textural treatment of the façade. The final product is an architecture which it will be suggested is of a logical clarity unparalleled until the surge of neo-classicism, much later on in the century. Rather than dry ‘academicism’, it will be argued that this new type of architecture represents a clear and deliberate development of Burlington’s aesthetics into a coherent architectural system which consciously selected, and rejected, common Renaissance practices.

The one constant in the history of Enmore Castle from its construction, 1751–57, to the present day has been its obscurity. In architectural history its impact has been so slight as to make a very real point about aesthetics and motivation in the early years of the medieval revival. Enmore was a very large moated castle, highly innovatory for its building period, and the creation of a prominent politician, an Irish peer who was a member of the English House of Commons. In spite of this it never captured the imagination of its times nor the interest of later historians of the Revival, only the dismissive mockery of Horace Walpole, reproduction in a few prints and some brief mention in country histories and tours of England.

Few of Britain’s public buildings have aroused so much public discussion over so many years as the National Gallery. Ever since the building was opened in 1838 it has been criticized for its inconvenient layout and for its failure to measure up to what Sir Robert Peel called ‘the finest site in Europe’. William IV, in one of his last recorded utterances, called it ‘a nasty little pokey hole’, and since then there have always been complaints about the lack of space both for pictures and for visitors. Yet successive proposals for rebuilding or replacement have foundered again and again. The still unwritten history of the building is littered with the debris of grandiose projects abandoned and piecemeal additions and alterations adopted in their place. With yet another extension under construction it is an appropriate time to re-examine the early history of this strangely unsatisfactory yet much-loved edifice.

Among the distinguishing architectural features of the red-brick seaside town of Bexhill, East Sussex, is the startling white form of the De La Warr Pavilion (Fig. 1). It is a building of some significance, partly because it represents the aspirations of British proponents of modern architecture in the 1930s in its appearance, its use of advanced constructional techniques (it was one of the first all-welded steel framed buildings in Britain) and its social function as an entertainment centre which aimed to provide amusement and simultaneously improve people’s mental and physical fitness. The architects of the Pavilion, Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, had formed their partnership in 1933 when Mendelsohn had been forced to leave Berlin and emigrate to Britain; subsequently they triumphed in an open competition of 230 entries which provides a fascinating commentary on the ideological debate among British architects of the time, not least because of the architectural range represented by the designs which failed to win an award.

In 1950, the year California returned Richard Nixon to the United States Senate, Arts and Architecture put Raphael Soriano’s Case Study House on display to the public (Fig. 1). This programme, promoted during the post-war years by John Entenza’s adventurous magazine, sought to provide exemplars for contemporary living.

With the death of Peter Reyner Banham in March 1988 at the age of 66, the architectural world lost one of its most distinguished historians and irrepressible critics. His career, by normal academic standards, was wide-ranging and helps to explain his unconventional and, at times, idiosyncratic approach to architecture. During the war Banham very successfully studied at the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s engine division, thereby acquiring a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of mechanical engineering. An evident enthusiasm for technology was combined with a rigorous training in art history under Nikolaus Pevsner at the Courtauld Institute from where he graduated in 1952.