Castle Howard and the Emergence of the Modern Architectural Subject

Undertaken at the turn of the eighteenth century by John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor for Charles Howard, the third earl of Carlisle, Castle Howard began life as a grand country house linked to a traditional formal garden but soon evolved into what has come to be acknowledged as one of the first, if not the first, English landscape garden. This essay focuses on the outbuildings in their landscape setting in order to show how the strange and evocative mood they create in the beholder grows out of a new subjectivity that reveals important insights into the shift from classical to early modern ideas of architectural representation. Unlike previous studies, which have explored the role of the patron, the relationship to contemporary English culture, and the social and economic forces acting upon the design, this one attempts to place the work-and define its significance-in the broader context of the development of early modern architecture.