“These books have shaped my world view.”

“When I think about books, I always come back to the words of Jorge Luis Borges. ‘I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met...' Every time I read, it changes my brain,” says artist and designer Es Devlin. She is discussing her love of reading as we stand within the stately realms of Yorkshire’s Castle Howard, an English Baroque jewel set within 9,000 acres built in the 18th century by the architects Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor.

We have gathered to preview Devlin’s public installation the Library of the Four Winds, an entrancing kinetic sculpture located at the Temple of the Four Winds, an 18th-century folly modelled on Palladio’s Villa La Rotonda by Vanbrugh who, rather astoundingly, was something of a novice when he was commissioned to envisage the architectural splendour of the estate. The architect also built Blenheim Palace.

The 10 minute walk from the house to the folly via the gardens feels like a pilgrimage through countryside stretching as far as the eye can see. The only interruptions are the Atlas Fountain, the sound of gushing water filling the air, and in the far distance a pyramid, a structure at odds with its verdant surroundings as though it had dropped from the sky – another folly, this one by Hawksmoor. Later, I am told by Castle Howard’s curator, author and historian Christopher Ridgway, that every viewpoint at the house has another one further in the distance. “There is always something that takes you by surprise here even after 40 years,” he says.

The temple comes into view at the end of a sweeping terrace. And then you hear it: the melodic strings of a violin drifting through the open doors of the folly. Four concentric tables surround the building, which have books placed upon them  – these are from Devlin’s own library, each heavily thumbed and filled with annotations, which are left outside offering a place for people to read, talk, draw, eat and listen. As one steps through the doors of the folly, Devlin’s sculpture reveals itself within a room of black and gold scagliola, the stone floor inlaid with intricate, coloured marble under a domed ceiling. It is a giant oval mirrored bookcase standing on a mirror base that creates an optical illusion, dissolving into the floor. 

“The books I chose for this piece have been absolutely pivotal to my thought. Most books change me but without these ones, I would not have shaped my world view,” says Devlin, wearing a bright lemon coat that intensifies her dark tresses as we gather inside the pavilion around the bookcase. “I’ve chosen phrases that I’ve underlined with a pencil when reading the books. I do that quite often: either underlining words or, when finding myself enraged, writing the word, ‘No!’ next to them. So it is me wanting to share with the public phrases that will hopefully help them too.”

These words are projected onto rows of books stacked inside the rotating bookcase. At intervals, Devlin’s soft, measured voice can be heard reading the passages aloud over an audio system (“The books are almost reading themselves to you.” she explains). This is followed by a period of silence, and in these pauses, the words light-up on the sculpture – they speak for themselves. “The pauses give people time to absorb them in her own way,” Devlin adds. 

On why she thinks books strike such deep resonance within us, she says: “I find we are moved by the fragility of them – they are something we have all held in our hands. We have all lost books, broken them, left them out in the sun or rain, and so, the books outside on the tables are fragile. They feel like flesh because they are made of wood, of carbon.”

We are left to sit and contemplate her ever-turning sculpture. New words flash across the books, igniting out of nowhere as if burning through the pages. Devlin’s audio fills the room a moment later: the same passage from Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House is spoken aloud. “Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge…” 

The real Devlin, barely able to contain her enthusiasm for the piece, stands up to explain. “Many of these passages keep alive the political activism of Vanbrugh and are books that he might have been interested in. They reflect the things he was fighting for: equality and democracy,” she says.

Another audio begins. Also prose by Lorde: “I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes – everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!” The place falls silent, mesmerised.

As one studies the sculpture, it becomes apparent that the books are arranged with the pages – rather than the spines – facing the audience. This too has meaning. “When I was a schoolchild I remember being read a poem by Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, and the first line was, ‘Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold. And many goodly states and kingdoms seen,’” Devlin recalls. “My teacher back then, who didn’t mind humiliating us, asked, ‘Does anyone know what the realms of gold are?’ None of us did. He said, they are books, the gold leaf-edges of the pages. That has stayed with me.”

It has also informed former Devlin works, which are anchored by books. “I have made two of these revolving libraries before this, and in the other two I had one side of the spine showing and the other side the pages, but in this small room, which is so fretted with gold leaf, the introduction of colour didn’t feel appropriate,” she says. “I knew that I wanted this texture of language coming in and falling apart as the sculpture turns away from the viewer, and then it comes back together as it comes into view again.”

The Library of the Four Winds is Devlin’s third revolving library sculpture, which was preceded by Library of Light in Milan in 2025: an 18-metre circular, revolving cylindrical sculpture inside the historic 17th-century courtyard of the Pinacoteca di Brera; and Library of Us in Miami in the same year: a 50ft-long triangular rotating bookshelf set within a shallow reflecting pool on Faena Beach during Miami Art Week. This is, however, her first indoor library sculpture, which was made in response to Vanbrugh’s architecture – and is part of Castle Howard’s celebration of his legacy through exhibitions, installations, workshops, talks and performances held throughout the year to mark the 300th anniversary of his death. This piece, which also honours the National Year of Reading, is expected to be a major public draw. Sponsored by the perfume house Penhaligon's, there will be activities throughout the summer including weekly drawing workshops.

“I began this journey in 2016 when working on Parsifal, which is a near six-hour Wagner opera, and it struck me that I was doing more concentrated reading in those rehearsals because I was reading the subtitles to the opera for hours at a time without being interrupted by my phone - which has depleted my attention span,” Devlin explains, tracing the genesis of this work. “And I thought, not everyone loves opera but could we gather everyone in collective reading with a subtitled screen. We invited Carlo Rovelli and he let us use the Order of Time, and we had Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice. 2,000 people gathered on a rainy night on the roof of Peckham Bold Tendencies in 2018 and we all spent 24 minutes reading an abridged version of quantum physics. It was built from there.”

Devlin turned her own voice into an instrument along the way. “I’ve really learnt to use my voice that way because of my work,” she smiles. “When I am reading those passages, I do it like music, like I am playing the clarinet.”

As the sky turns dark and the heavens open, pounding the domed ceiling of the folly with rain and drenching the books on the tables outside, it is as though we are experiencing the full sensory experience of Devlin’s vision. And, as we run for the house under the shield of umbrellas, the sudden appearance of the sun igniting the gilt dome of the house, feels like Vanbrugh is also putting on a show. In fact, he is. Castle Howard is hosting the exhibition Staging the Baroque: Vanbrugh at Castle Howard, which explores the moment he encountered the 3rd Earl of Carlisle at London’s Kit-Cat Club. The Earl wanted to build a grand country house and Vanbrugh’s bold, theatrical vision inspired him to take a chance – even though this would-be architect had never built anything before.

The Library of the Four Winds by Es Devlin runs until 27th September at Castle Howard. North Yorkshire.