John Soane - The Royal Academy

The Royal Academy

The Royal Academy was at the very centre of Soane's architectural career, in the sixty four years from 1772 to 1836 there were only five years, 1778 and 1788–91 in which he did not exhibit any designs there. Soane had received part of his architectural education at the Academy and it had paid for his Grand Tour. On 2 November 1795 Soane was elected an Associate Royal Academician and on the 10 February 1802 Soane was elected a full Royal Academician, his diploma work being a drawing of his design for a new House of Lords. There were only ever a maximum of forty Royal Academicians at any one time. Under the rules of the Academy Soane automatically became for one year a member of the Council of the Academy, this consisted of the President and eight other Academicians.

After Thomas Sandby died in 1798, George Dance, Soane's old teacher was appointed professor of architecture at the Academy, but during his tenure of the post failed to deliver a single lecture. Naturally this caused dissatisfaction, and Soane began to manoeuver to obtain the post for himself. Eventual Soane succeeded in ousting Dance and became professor on 28 March 1806. Soane did not deliver his first lecture until 27 March 1809 and did not begin to deliver the full series of twelve lectures until January 1810. All went well until he reached his fourth lecture on 29 January 1810, in it he criticised several recent buildings in London, including George Dance's Royal College of Surgeons of England and his former pupil Robert Smirke's Covent Garden Theatre. Naturally Royal Academicians Robert Smirke (painter) father of the architect and his friend Joseph Farington led a campaign against Soane, as a consequence the Royal Academy introduced a rule forbidding criticism of a living British artist in any lectures delivered there. Soane attempted to resist what he saw as interference and it was only under threat of dismissal that he finally amended his lecture and recommenced on 12 February 1813 the delivery of the first six lectures. The rift that all this caused between Soane and George Dance would only be healed in 1815 after the death of Mrs Soane.

The twelve lectures, they were treated as two separate courses of six lectures, were all extensively illustrated with over one thousand drawings and building plans in total. The lectures were:

• Lecture I – traced 'architecture from its most early periods' and covered the origin of civil, military and naval architecture.
• Lecture II – outlined the Classical architecture of the ancient world continuing on from the first lecture.
• Lecture III – an analysis of the five Classical orders, their application and the use of Caryatids.
• Lecture IV – use of the classical orders structurally and decoratively and for commemorative monuments.
• Lecture V – the history of architecture from Constantine the Great and the Decline of the Roman Empire to the rise of Renaissance architecture, followed by a survey of British architecture from Inigo Jones to William Chambers (architect).
• Lecture VI – covered arches, bridges the theory and symbolism of architectural ornament.
• Lecture VII – appropriate character in architecture and the correct use of decoration.
• Lecture VIII – the distribution and planning of rooms and staircases.
• Lecture IX – the design of windows, doors, pilasters, roofs and chimney-shafts.
• Lecture X – landscape architecture and garden buildings.
• Lecture XI – a discussion of the architecture and planning of London contrasting it with Paris.
• Lecture XII – a discussion of construction methods and standards.