Vaughan Hart is a leading architectural historian, and Professor Emeritus of Architecture in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

. He served as head of department between 2008 and 2010.

Biography

Hart was born in Ireland in 1960 and spent part of his childhood in Hong Kong. He studied architecture at the

and

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge, colloquially "Tit Hall" ) is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1350, it is th ...

, where he was taught by Michael Brawne, Patrick Hodgkinson, Peter Smithson, Ted Happold and Dalibor Vesely. Smithson was his final year undergraduate tutor, and part of Hart's student project was exhibited in the 1986 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition where it won the RA Student Prize. Between 1985 and 1986 he worked as an architectural assistant to Sir Colin St John Wilson on the British Library project in London, and one of his drawings of the entrance hall is now in the RIBA drawing's collection at the V&A in London. Hart then moved to Cambridge to teach in Wilson's unit and study for a doctorate on

Inigo Jones Inigo Jones (15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was an English architect who was the first significant Architecture of England, architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvius, Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmet ...

under

Joseph Rykwert Joseph Rykwert (5 April 1926 – 17 or 18 October 2024) was a British architectural historian and writer. He was the Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the foremost architectural historia ...

. Hart's thesis formed the basis for his first book, on the art and architecture of the Stuart Court, published by Routledge in 1994.

Publications

Hart's concerns lie in particular with the symbolic function of architecture, and with the sources and meaning of architectural forms. He has published widely in the field of architectural history, specialising in the Italian architectural treatises and in British architectural history of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He is the co-translator (with Peter Hicks) of the treatises of

Sebastiano Serlio Sebastiano Serlio (6 September 1475 – c. 1554) was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau. Serlio helped canonize the classical orders of architecture in his influential treatise ...

, funded by the Getty Grants Programme and The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and he has also translated the two guidebooks to Rome published by

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( , ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be on ...

and the guidebook to Venice by Francesco Sansovino (2017). These works were all published by Yale University Press, and have in turn been translated into Chinese and Japanese. Hart's translation of these classic works formed part of a wider project initiated by Rykwert and

Robert Tavernor Robert Tavernor (born 1954) is an English Emeritus Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and founding director of the Tavernor Consultancy in London. He is an architecture histo ...

through their translation of the treatise by

Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, Catholic priest, priest, linguistics, linguist, philosopher, and cryptography, cryptographer; he epitomised the natu ...

. In addition, Hart's monographs include influential studies of the work of

, Sir

Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren FRS (; – ) was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist who was one of the most highly acclaimed architects in the history of England. Known for his work in the English Baroque style, he was ac ...

, Sir

John Vanbrugh Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restor ...

and

Nicholas Hawksmoor Nicholas Hawksmoor ( – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the principal architects ...

, all published by Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. The latter monograph was awarded the Best Book on British Art Prize of the American College Art Association in 2004.

Exhibitions

In 1997 Hart was the curator of an exhibition entitled 'Paper Palaces: Architectural books from 1472 to 1800 in the collection of Cambridge University Library'. This consisted of architectural prints, manuscripts and over 140 rare books and incunabula, and was held in the Adeane Gallery of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. It was opened by the Duke of Gloucester. In 2008 he co-organised (with Peter Hicks and Alan Day) an exhibition entitled 'Palladio's Rome' held at the

British School at Rome The British School at Rome (BSR) is a British interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture established in Rome. Historical and archaeological study are at the core of its activities. History The British Sc ...

, and in 2009 he co-organised (again with Hicks and Day) an exhibition of research work held at the Réfectoire des Cordeliers at the Sorbonne, Paris. Along with Tavernor, Hart has pioneered the use of the computer to visualise lost buildings and investigate historic forms. In 2002 he was funded by the AHRC to build a computer model of Hawksmoor's work in the city of Oxford. His computer work has been displayed in the 1993 and 1995 Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, in the National Theatre Museum at Covent Garden, the George Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and in the ‘Nelson and Napoleon’ exhibition held at the National Maritime Museum, London, in July 2005.

Teaching and Fellowships

Vaughan Hart has lectured in many schools of architecture throughout the world, and his graduate students hold academic and museum posts in Australia, Sweden and the UK. Hart has held visiting posts as a senior fellow of the

Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art is a scholarly centre in London devoted to supporting original research into the history of British Art. It was founded in 1970 and endowed by a gift from Paul Mellon. Since 1996, it has been ...

in 2005, and as a visiting scholar at

St John's College, Oxford St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its foun ...

in the same year. In 2009 he was Ailsa Mellon Bruce Visiting Senior Fellow at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

in Washington, D.C. He was a visiting professor at Kent University. He served on the AHRC Peer Review College from 2011 to 2016. He was a trustee of the Holburne Museum in Bath from 2011 to 2016 and a member of the advisory board of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, an independent research institute within the University of Helsinki, Finland, from 2012 to 2017. He served as the assistant honorary secretary and trustee of the

Oriental Ceramic Society The Oriental Ceramic Society (OCS) is one of the leading international societies for the study and appreciation of Asian art, with a special interest in ceramics. However its wider focus is the study and appreciation of all aspects of oriental a ...

between 2014 and 2019.

Publications (selection)

* ''Art and Magic in the Court of the Stuarts'' (Routledge, 1994; eBook 2002; paperback edition 2014) * ''St Paul's Cathedral: Christopher Wren'' (Phaidon, 1995; hardback edition 1999) * ''Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture'' (with Peter Hicks, Yale University Press, 2 vols.: vol.1, 1996 (paperback edition 2005; Chinese edition, China Architecture and Building Press, 2014) and vol.2, 2001 (Chinese edition, China Architecture and Building Press, 2019)) * ''Paper Palaces: the Rise of the Renaissance Architectural Treatise'' (with Peter Hicks, Yale University Press, 1998) * ''Nicholas Hawksmoor: Rebuilding Ancient Wonders'' (Yale University Press, 2002: awarded the Best Book on British Art Prize of the American College Art Association in 2003; paperback edition 2007) * ''Palladio's Rome'' (with Peter Hicks, Yale University Press, 2006; paperback edition, 2009; Japanese edition, Hakusuisha Co. Ltd., 2011) * ''Sir John Vanbrugh: Storyteller in Stone'' (Yale University Press, 2008: shortlisted in 2008 by the Authors’ Club for the Banister Fletcher Book Prize) * ''Inigo Jones: the Architect of Kings'' (Yale University Press, 2011: shortlisted in 2012 for the William M. B. Berger Prize for British Art History, the British Art Book Prize and Apollo Magazine's Book of the Year; shortlisted in 2013 for the Best Book on British Art by the Historians of British Art) * ''Sansovino's Venice'' (with Peter Hicks, Yale University Press, 2017) * 'Navel Gazing. On Albrecht Dürer's Adam and Eve (1504)', ''The International Journal of Arts Theory and History'', 2016, vol.12.1 pp. 1–10 * ''Myth and Modernism: Essays on the Quest for Spiritual Architecture in the Early Twentieth Century'' (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2019) * ''Christopher Wren: In Search of Eastern Antiquity'' (Yale University Press, 2020) * * Photographs of Hawksmoor's buildings taken by Hart are held in the Conway Library of art and architecture, The Courtauld.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Vaughan Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Bath Academics of the University of Bath British architectural historians Irish architectural historians Living people Year of birth missing (living people)