The Essay

In a series tracing the role of clouds in art, architecture and the cultural imagination, architectural historian Robert Harbison considers the obsessive fascination with clouds in the baroque period. He explores the depiction of ever-expanding spaces, as architects tried to realise this vision with elaborate cloud-ceilings and extravagant multi-media designs. Harbison describes the experience of standing in these buildings that to him seem part-earthly material and part-cloud.