The wisdom of King George.

John Soane (1753-1837) was the most brilliant architect of his generation in England, possibly in the world. At last, his genius has been recognized by the Royal Academy in London, his alma mater.

Not all of George III's decisions were crass. In 1777, a year after his obtusity provoked many of his North American colonies to revolt, he was persuaded by the Royal Academy to make a grant to a bricklayer's son so that the young man could spend three years in Italy to study the best models of architecture. In artistic terms, the decision was revolutionary.

A talent for political manoeuvring ensured that, after Italy, Soan (only later Soane) was quite quickly accepted by the monied and, in time, he was able to build up a fine practice of country houses, and increasingly of official buildings. Not so very different from many young men of his age perhaps, but Soane's talent in handling volume and form was as astonishing in architecture as Goethe's was in literature. (They were almost exact contemporaries.) Both were fascinated by science, both transformed by Italy, both passionate about history, and at the same time they were the new men of the end of the eighteenth century: individualists, determined to change the world, but bound to work within the rigid rules of hierachical society, yet influenced profoundly (like another contemporary, Beethoven) by the great revolutions, Romanticism and Bonaparte (the ideal if not the man).

After his death in 1837, Soane was out of fashion for well over a century. His marvellous buildings were ignored and sometimes demolished. The wonderful interiors of the Bank of England, the crown of his life's work, were scandalously destroyed between 1920 and 1940. The Bank was the nearest thing to a grand Roman palace like Hadrian's Villa ever built in northern Europe, and now we do not even have ruins from which to recall it. Soane's Museum, the house which he left to the nation -- complete with his collections, drawings and models -- and which was protected by Act of Parliament, was dusty, forgotten and unvisited.

Perhaps Soane knew what was going to happen. He was marvellously lucky in having as assistant Joseph Gandy, who drew his master's buildings in watercolour in the course of construction, completed, and sometimes in ruins, as they were expected to be following a destruction of civilization as complete as the one which overwhelmed the Roman Empire. Gandy's paintings are some of the most transfixing contents of the Museum.

Neglect has changed to fame now. Soane's Museum must be one of the most visited in London (well, by architects at least). No-one with any serious interest in architecture can possibly avoid the breakfast room, the most intense small domestic space of the nineteenth century, awesome in the way that light floods down over the walls round the shallow dome (see for instance AR. April 1995). It is extremely comfortable and welcoming -- and at the same time a sort of tomb, a sparkling, yet solemn monument to Soane's ill-fated attempts to create a happy family life.

Now, at last the Royal Academy has decided to celebrate its former pupil (and later Professor) with a splendid exhibition that allows display of many of the works inevitably often stored and little seen in the limited premises of the Museum. Piers Gough has designed the exhibition with flair and wit evoking (without pastiche) some of the sensations of Soane's interiors. Margaret Richardson (curator of the Soane Museum) and Gillian Darley (author of a new biography which will shortly be reviewed in these pages) are some of the key players in creating the show. Soane's Academic descendants, people like Rogers, Grimshaw, MacCormac, Hopkins, Foster and Cullinan have rallied to the cause with contributions of money or things like new explanatory models: Foster's model-making department has been particularly hard at work. The show is called John Soane: Master of Space and Light and, for once, the title is no hyperbole.

The exhibition is on at the Royal Academy, London until 3 December. The excellent catalogue John Soane: Master of Space and Light is published by the Royal Academy ([pounds]22.50pb). Gillian Darley's book on the great architect but unhappy and often unpleasant man: John Sauce: An Accidental Romantic is published by Yale at [pounds]25.