ABSTRACT
Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire in the English Midlands was completed in 1597, to the design of Robert Smythson. The house is widely acknowledged to be one of the great buildings of Elizabethan England and has been the subject of extensive research. This essay brings environmental analysis to the study of the house and, thereby, adds a new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of it. A striking aspect of the building is the apparent disjunction between the strict bi-axial symmetry of its exterior and the complex arrangement of its internal apartments. The environmental analysis shows that the disposition of the principal rooms and, in particular, the private apartments of the house’s remarkable owner, the Countess of Shrewsbury, follows from deeply considered appreciation of environmental needs, in particular the importance of orientation in relation to the use of rooms. In addition, the paper shows how, at a time before environment could be quantified, the design achieves precision without measure.
