Sunday 25 August 2013

Hawksmoor at Somerset House

There is a mystique around Nicholas Hawksmoor, Wren's assistant and architect of churches including St Mary Woolnoth and Christ Church Spitalfields. The concrete reality of the churches has perhaps been overshadowed by their enigmatic reimagining in the work of Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd. They are thus well-known, but - according to the exhibition Methodical Imaginings - insufficiently visually documented. 


This exhibition seeks to address that lack with a combination of specially-commissioned photographs and resin models of Hawksmoor's churches. Apparently simple and even sparse, the exhibition draws visitors in and focuses their attention where it belongs: not on mysterious rites and ley-lines but upon the buildings themselves. 

The exhibition has just over a week to run, and if you are near Somerset House, I would recommend a visit. There is more information here; London Historians has also visited.

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