Using Drawings in the Lecture Room: John Soane's Architectural Performances at the Royal Institution

Little is known about the non-specialist and semi-public lectures which the architect John Soane delivered to general audiences at the Royal Institution in 1817 and 1820. This is in contrast to the large amount of scholarly attention which his longer, more detailed and invitation-only lectures composed for the architectural students of the Royal Academy of Arts have received. This essay provides the first detailed account of the popular RI lectures, revealing Soane's scenographic methods of using lecture drawings with spoken words in a form of early-nineteenth-century, embodied architectural pedagogy. The essay argues for the significance of Soane's lectures as historically-situated performances (not written texts or printed works) and sets out a radical methodology that draws from the disciplines of theatre and performance history to read architectural history.