"Sir John Soane: The Royal Academy Lectures contains the full text of Soane's lectures. It is a revised and abridged edition of his award-winning book Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Real Academy Lectures. Watkin explains the significance of Soane's approach to architectural history and theory, as expressed in the lectures delivered from 1810 to 1820 as Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy. Providing a key that enables the modern observer to understand the work of an architect who is widely regarded as the most inventive of his day in Europe, the lectures enable us to enter Soane's private dialogue with an array of philosophers, architectural theorists, art historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists. They are accompanied by a selection of the watercolors that Soane prepared as illustrations."--BOOK JACKET.