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Compass and Rule

16 June – 6 September 2009

… Architecture represented culture as well as commerce. The success of classical architecture as a vehicle for gentlemanly self-fashioning reached all the way to the court. George III was not only an active patron of architecture and instruments, he was also a devoted and accomplished student of the art. This royal enthusiasm, however, had a downside. In the era of Hogarth and of party politics, it provided ammunition for satire, aimed at both the policies of the government as well as its cultural patronage.

Compass and Rule: Architecture as Mathematical Practice in England, 1500-1750

This exhibition brings together some of the finest architectural and scientific material from the early modern period including Sir Christopher Wren’s drawings of St Paul’s Cathedral, architectural drawings by King George III and an astrolabe made for Queen Elizabeth I.

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