| Popis: |
Europe’s largest secular public interior, the Rotunda at Ranelagh, was erected to fulfil a social purpose. The Ranelagh complex—house, pleasure gardens, Chinese pavilion, huge Rotunda—soon became more fashionable than its older rival Vauxhall. Horace Walpole wrote, “It has totally beat Vauxhall… You can’t set your foot without treading on a Prince, or Duke of Cumberland”. However, if celebrity was guaranteed, the intimacy found there was less evident and Walpole remained as silent about it as he had been forthcoming about its celebrity visitors. This chapter theorises this development: first to explain why a need arose for such a large Rotunda; why the public was willing to pay to see celebrities; and how intimacy might flourish in such exposed spaces. |
