The book on Vanbrugh that I have been working on – I started writing seriously over Christmas 2021 – seems suddenly a touch more real now that you can pre-order it on Amazon.  It’s being copy edited at the moment.  75,000 words.  It comes out in November just in time for Christmas, an exhibition at the Soane Museum in February a year from now, and Vanbrugh’s tercentenary on 26 March 2026.  A Vanbrugh-fest, I hope.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Vanbrugh-Charles-Saumarez-Smith/dp/1848227310/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=19GWQMCM0ZJV4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CEXyaQkZPTe9WHwCbSJKZD6GIcx9ooSSKN2jdKnCJnC1BMKkrsy2834OXpdSg-A3M65eYY7kOLBf6mpvhiZZd1pBbkxbLmO9bQuSdSrbasAP6XVhVQqyQKF8DVAhDL3psTVd6c-bnoZf9WWvsTJyOXgaQB5hMFm59oFun3VIEEob5xceGWihBWLFNjxBJvsnaMK187trSjEjgEd2J299Nw.jyqVXzXD_fPHtCbJISNW2l4OHdR0fcfahkjJnUPBDOg&dib_tag=se&keywords=charles+saumarez+smith&qid=1739474558&sprefix=charles+saumarez+smith%2Caps%2C517&sr=8-3

The Royal Opera House was selling tickets cheap for Festen, but possibly not any more after its first night last night: so horrifyingly and briefly intense.  I didn’t know at all what to expect, but thought it pretty powerful stuff.

https://theartsdesk.com/opera/festen-royal-opera-review-firing-every-front

We are mourning the death of my nephew Joe who has died aged only 53, the chairman of the British Horseracing Authority.  As the Sun says, he took to racing young, not a family characteristic, and was brilliant at all aspects of betting.  It was a great benefit to me when I went to the National Portrait Gallery that my trustees knew him as the racing correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.  ‘Kind, thoughtful, funny intelligent’.  A good description.  A terrible loss.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/33321846/racing-boss-dead-aged-53/

If you are in central London this week, I recommend a visit to the exhibition by Louis Pohl Koseda in Christie’s exhibition galleries to the left of the entrance on King Street.

Louis was a student at the Royal Drawing School, graduating in 2023, when he won the Christie’s Award which gave him a year in which to pursue his work.  He has been astonishingly prolific, drawing scenes from his imagination, but also located in the city.  The work is amazing.

https://www.royaldrawingschool.org/lectures-events/louis-pohl-koseda-christies-award-2025-exhibition/

I find the Soane Museum endlessly fascinating, always different every time I go. I have discovered I have a surprising number of pictures of its interiors taken over the last couple of years.

First, Soane himself by Francis Chantrey:-

And the surrounding mis-en-scène:-

If you missed this morning’s edition of In Our Time, I strongly recommend listening to the three different, but compatible accounts of his career from Gillian Darley, who wrote his biography, Frank Salmon who teaches architectural history, and Frances Sands who looks after his drawings at the Soane Museum, interviewed by Melvyn Bragg:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0027jwv?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I see that the Twentieth-Century Society is calling, once again, for the Southbank Centre to be listed – quite rightly (https://c20society.org.uk/news/if-not-now-when-c20-renews-34-year-long-call-for-southbank-centre-listing).

But I notice they concentrate only on the exterior whereas what I am always impressed by is the strength and muscularity of the interior spaces and how well they serve as major exhibition galleries.

It’s a period piece and surely deserves listing now long overdue:-

It’s normally much later in the month that my articles in The Critic appear online, but here are my reflections on a recent excursion to County Cork (the second half appears next month).

O’Donnell + Tuomey have also done the new Sadler’s Wells East in Olympic Park and the Saw Swee Hock building for LSE.

https://thecritic.co.uk/when-architects-meet-their-makers/

I have only just been alerted to the fact that my long-ish review of Nicholas Olsberg’s excellent and beautifully produced book about William Butterfield in the February issue of The Critic has already appeared online:-

https://thecritic.co.uk/prickly-architect-of-gothic-marvels/

I went to see the exhibition by Christina Kimeze who did the Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School in 2021.  It’s interesting how the zeitgeist has changed and students are being taken up and shown by the mainstream contemporary art galleries, including Hauser and Wirth who are due to show an exhibition by her in Los Angeles this summer. 

Not least I was pleased to see the tapestry which the South London Gallery has commissioned from Dovecot Studio:-

https://www.royaldrawingschool.org/courses/postgraduate/student-stories/christina-kimeze/