Course 12 – Summer School on Campus
Monday 29 June – Friday 3 July 2026
Dr Kyle Leyden
£695
Course Description:
Architecture is the art form whose presence, symbolic message and socio-political legacy cannot be avoided. The construction of great buildings is an undertaking imbued with significant symbolic and political currency which continues to have an unavoidable resonance with those who continue to interact with these spaces today.
Through an overview of key historical moments and an examination of several major architectural projects, this course will present London as a city in which architecture was consciously deployed as a potent device through which the changing essential values of, and core political vision for, the British Empire were communicated to Londoners, the wider British population and to foreign observers. It will also consider current debates about how post-imperial societies can and ought to deal with the highly contested legacies of these prominent urban spaces.
Engaging with diverse issues and concepts, the course gives students an opportunity to gain a solid understanding of the social and artistic history of London and its critical role as a stage for the theatre of Empire.
It features visits to major public buildings and includes spaces that are otherwise inaccessible to the general public including the spectacular interiors of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; behind-the-scenes at Somerset House and the wonderful Adam interiors of Home House. Please note that last minute government business can lead to changes in itinerary, when the course leaders will endeavour to find suitable alternative visits.
Lecturer's Biography
Dr Kyle Leyden is Lecturer in Early Modern Architecture and Visual Culture at the Courtauld. His research focuses on the intersections of politics and architecture in the period 1560-1790, and the use of architecture as an active tool in effecting societal change. Following a career at the Bar of Ireland and in academic law, he completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at the Courtauld, where he was appointed to Faculty in 2023. He has worked for over twenty years as an advisor to some of the leading heritage institutions of the British Isles and was appointed to the Historic Buildings Council of Northern Ireland in 2022. He has published works on architectural and political history, and is currently completing work on the late Hamish Miles’ catalogue raisonné of the Scottish artist David Wilkie.