Et in Arcadia Ego. The Mausoleum at Castle Howard

Abstract

Abstract

All buildings that populate the garden of Castle Howard in a seemingly random, always placed on small hills, convey the feeling of being constantly observed objects, rather than being themselves observation sites surrounding territory. They are more the gaze receptors than its origin, and this is particularly relevant in the case of the mausoleum of Hawksmoor, more than a pavilion or a landmark in the landscape as it is the culmination of an itinerary that covers all of them and the counterpoint to the main house. The mausoleum is the building most inhabited and the most qualified from the spatial point of view, the most closed, the emptiest, the most inaccessible and the closest. This circular building can be watched with emotion from afar, but also encouraged to approach their limits, to almost physically feel the vitality of who lives inside that cage of stone, and dwells there forever reminding us that, as stated Erwin Panofsky, death is the real subject of the existence in the Arcadian landscape.