What’s On

Filtering by: “Architectural History”

Hybrid Q&A Session concerning the future of the RIBA Collections and the House of Architecture Project
Feb
29

Hybrid Q&A Session concerning the future of the RIBA Collections and the House of Architecture Project

Bookings for this event are now closed. Many thanks to those who have registered. If you are joining the Webinar, please do not forget to use the blue link in your email in advance. This will send you all information you need.

We will be developing a transcript of the event and reporting some of the information in the next issue of our SAHGB Members’ Magazine.

Since the news of the ending of the partnership between the RIBA and V+A broke last year, the SAHGB’s Chair, Elizabeth Darling, and Bob Allies, member of the Council, have been liaising with RIBA to ensure that members’ interests are represented in the discussions about the Collections’ future. Our recent report can be read here.

We can announce that Oliver Urquhart-Irvine MVO, Executive Director of Architecture Programmes and Collections, RIBA, will join us for a hybrid Q+A session about the collections move on 29 February 2024. We will hold this with limited spaces in person, in London (Blackfriars area), and as a Zoom webinar with a Q+A function.

Bookings closed on 27 February, and we regret we cannot offer places on the door.

Members and external participants are welcome to participate but those wishing to attend will receive an email with registration instructions after indicating interest below, and to submit questions, in advance, for either the Zoom webinar or in-person places. You need to respond to the email you receive after giving brief initial information here on this page.

For any queries, if you have registered already, please use info@sahgb.org.uk. We may not be able to respond in the afternoon of 29 February.



Calling SAHGB Members!

For those who use the website to renew annually from Jan-December, membership subscriptions are now due.

We encourage you to book for our Annual Lecture, on 14 March, ‘Architecture and Affect in the Middle Ages’, given by Prof. Paul Binski.

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The SAHGB Annual General Meeting
Nov
16

The SAHGB Annual General Meeting

16 November 2023: Hybrid AGM

The Annual General Meeting of the SAHGB will be held on Thursday 16th November, in the Atrium of Allies and Morrison, 89 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0HX, with a remote attendance option on Zoom, if preferred. Please note that we have now closed the period for registrations and proxy nominations.

We will follow the AGM with drinks at the venue.

Members and external participants are welcome to participate but those wishing to attend will need to register by 14 November, for both Zoom or in-person places.

The papers can be found on the members’ pages at this link

If places at the venue are booked to capacity, participation will be offered remotely through Zoom.

If you wish to appoint a proxy, please contact the Administrator before 14 November, on info@sahgb.org.uk


Calling SAHGB Members!

We will publish details in our newsletter, and online, of our 2023 AGM and linked Q+A Event on the future of the RIBA Collections in November. Please register for these if you wish to attend. We will be sending subscription renewal alerts in December, but you can use the ‘Renew Now’ form to carry on with your membership to the end of 2024 if desired.

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A Study Day to West Horsley Place, Surrey
Oct
16

A Study Day to West Horsley Place, Surrey

Please note that this event is now fully booked (6 October 2023)

You will receive information about your place shortly.

This fascinating study day is hosted at West Horsley Place, Surrey, courtesy of the West Horsley Place Trust.

This relatively unknown gem is not usually open to the public. The house is multi-phase with significant remains of a large medieval timber-framed building, concealed by a brick front of the mid-seventeenth century characteristic of Surrey’s style. It has been altered on several occasions but its architectural history is still relatively poorly-understood. Attenders will have an opportunity to see the whole of the house, led by Charles O’Brien, author of the recently-revised ‘Pevsner’ for Surrey and SAHGB Council member; Martin Higgins, chair of Surrey’s Domestic Buildings Research Group; and with contributions by Claire Gapper.

A sandwich lunch along with tea/coffee and cakes are included.

Accessibility:

The visit to West Horsley Place will include several sets of stairs.

Weather permitting, attendees able to access the roof areas safely may have the option to explore this part of the house at their own risk.

Bookings now closed


Calling SAHGB Members!

We will publish details in our newsletter, and online, of our 2023 AGM and linked Q+A Event on the future of the RIBA Collections in November. Please register for these if you wish to attend. We will be sending subscription renewal alerts in December, but you can use the ‘Renew Now’ form to carry on with your membership to the end of 2024 if desired.

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The SAHGB Study Tour 2023: Manchester - bookings close 8 September
Sept
21
to 23 Sept

The SAHGB Study Tour 2023: Manchester - bookings close 8 September

Bookings are closing soon for the 2023 Study Tour, taking place this year in Manchester. We aim to offer something for everyone in a varied programme, and will visit some fascinating locations, conservation areas, and heritage regeneration projects.

For the full information and booking form use this link

Image: The former Refuge Assurance Building, Manchester, now a hotel © @chriscurry92 via Unsplash


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Shortlists published for the SAHGB’s Alice Davis Hitchcock Award and Colvin Prize
Jul
27
to 13 Aug

Shortlists published for the SAHGB’s Alice Davis Hitchcock Award and Colvin Prize

We are delighted to announce the shortlists, decided after consideration of a generous number of nominations, for the 2023 ADH and Colvin Awards!

Our selection will be announced on the News posts at 9am on 27 July.

If you are considering entering the ‘Hawksmoor’ essay prize, the Heritage Research prize, or the Dissertation prize, entries are still being accepted: please see the Awards pages for details and how to send in an entry


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Rewiring the City: A Walk Through London’s Alleyways
Jun
29

Rewiring the City: A Walk Through London’s Alleyways

We are delighted to announce this new SAHGB-IHR event.

This will be a hybrid event, taking place online and in person at the Institute of Historical Research, Pollard N301 (3rd Floor, North Block of Senate House, Malet St, London WC1E 7HU).

Cover Image - © Nigel Green, Blue Crow Media


London's alleyways have a habit of leading to unexpected places. They act as the city’s library: echoing the routes of trade, lost rivers, burial roads, disputed boundaries, tracks of animals and people. Alleyways inject a dose of disjunction into the cityscape, triggering unfamiliar ways of moving from one familiar space to another. They have a tendency to momentarily rewire the city and throw drab views of a place into a new light, unexpectedly montaging different areas and streets together to make new experiences. Common waypoints only allow a surface interaction with a place, while hidden passages allow us to enter the inner mechanics of its perceptual constructions.

Image: St John's Path © Matthew Turner

Image: Strand Lane © Matthew Turner

Image: French Ordinary Court © Matthew Turner


BIO

Matthew Turner is a senior lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts. He has written about alleyways for Icon magazine, the Architectural Review and has discussed them with Robert Elms on BBC Radio London. In 2022 he published the London Alleyways Map with Blue Crow Media. and the West: An Architectural Dialogue (2019) and the prize-winning Craig Ellwood (2002).


Book a place

Calling SAHGB Members!

Please explore our Summer events on our website: Study Visits to Greenwich and a Curator’s tour at the Soane Museum, and celebrations of Wren and Adam for 2023. Sincere thanks for your support. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

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Zoom Room introduction to the Heritage Research Award with the SAHGB and IHBC: online event hosted by the IHBC Marketplace: LIVE
Jun
21

Zoom Room introduction to the Heritage Research Award with the SAHGB and IHBC: online event hosted by the IHBC Marketplace: LIVE

We invite you to register for an online session and Q&A to celebrate the Heritage Research Prize, and join in the virtual IHBC Marketplace: LIVE evening on Wednesday 21 June


Join Panel Chair John Cattell (Head of Research at Historic England, SAHGB Trustee) and IHBC Panel Judge Matthew Saunders for an online drop-in session to find out about one of our newest awards, the Heritage Research Prize (accepting entries online at the SAHGB’s Awards Pages until 1st September).

There will be a choice of 2 sessions to attend, kindly hosted by the IHBC as part of its Annual School 2023, taking place in Swansea. Entry to the Heritage Research Prize session will also allow you to attend other presentations as part of the Marketplace: LIVE Programme and an optional ‘Happy Hour’ with the IHBC and other participants from 6pm . This event is virtual and open to all but you must register in advance (details below).

Those registering will have opportunities to ask questions and also to visit other Zoom drop-in rooms for networking, heritage careers information, and opportunities to view architects’ and conservationists’ latest areas of interest and concern. Explore https://marketplace.ihbc.org.uk/ for a flavour of the presentations in store.

The full programme and joining details will be sent to you by email nearer the time. Access offered for this programme is only via Zoom, not for in-person or hybrid Annual School sessions

To participate, please register via the link below (now deactivated) and await a joining link at 4:30 on the 21st


Calling SAHGB Members!

Please explore our Summer events on our website: Study Visits to Greenwich and a Curator’s tour at the Soane Museum, and celebrations of Wren and Adam for 2023. Sincere thanks for your support. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

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‘Inigo Jones Makes a List’. Professor Christy Anderson gives an online lecture for Jones’ 450th Anniversary.
May
25

‘Inigo Jones Makes a List’. Professor Christy Anderson gives an online lecture for Jones’ 450th Anniversary.

The SAHGB welcomes Professor Christy Anderson, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in the field of Architecture, Planning and Design at the University of Toronto, to give a lecture in celebration of architect and artist Inigo Jones.

This event will take place online through Zoom. A link will be circulated to all who registered the morning of the event. Thank you for understanding.

Cover Image: St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden ©Christy Anderson


One of the many talents of the designer and architect Inigo Jones is that he was a great reader. The surviving books from his collection are filled with the notes and markings of his response to the images and text. Throughout his books, and sometimes on the back of drawings, Jones made lists of the things that he read, buildings he studied, and sometimes just a list of things that he needed to remember from home. This talk looks at Jones’s list making and how it was a method of study that shaped his architecture and design practice, and even his own public persona. Within Jones’s notes are records of his careful study of buildings both in England and in Europe and indicate how much he relied on his study of things close to home as well as to the more exotic art and architecture of Italy, France, and Denmark. Finally, the talk will suggest that list-making as a practice was closely tied to Jones’s study of classical architecture, that was a list-based system of its own.

Queen’s House, Greenwich ©Christy Anderson


BIO

Professor Christy Anderson teaches at the University of Toronto. Her most recent project is a study of the Renaissance ship as an architectural type. Appearing this year is a second book on the architect Inigo Jones, to be published by Reaktion Press. Previous books include Renaissance Architecture (Oxford, 2013) and Inigo Jones and the Classical Tradition (Cambridge, 2006). In 2010 she was named a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in the field of Architecture, Planning and Design. She received her PhD from MIT, and was a Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of The Art Bulletin.


Book a place

Calling SAHGB Members!

Please explore our Summer events on our website: the Annual Conference ‘Constructing Coloniality’ (UCL, London, May), Study Visits, and celebrations of Wren, Jones and Adam for 2023. Sincere thanks for your support. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

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Sir Christopher Wren’s Place in the History of Architectural Practice- Celebrating 300 Years
May
18

Sir Christopher Wren’s Place in the History of Architectural Practice- Celebrating 300 Years

We are delighted to announce this new SAHGB event.

This will be an online event.

Cover Image - St. Paul's Cathedral by © Stephen Gage


This year marks the 300 years since Wren’s death in 1723. For most of that time, Wren’s contribution has been discussed and considered leading to a prodigious body of scholarship. This lecture asks why Wren continues to occupy architectural historians today, whether there is still more to explore about this fascinating individual and in particular what place he occupies in the history of the architectural profession.

St. Paul's Cathedral by ©Stephen Gage


BIO

James WP Campbell is Professor of Architecture and Construction History and Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. He is Chairman of the Construction History and has published widely on the history of building construction and the development of the architecture profession. His PhD looked at Wren’s carpentry and he is author of Building St Paul’s.


Book a place

Calling SAHGB Members!

In celebration of Sir Christopher Wren, we have a collection of Summer events on our website, including an in-depth walking tour to Greenwich with lunch (now booking on our events calendar), and more lectures for special anniversaries. The Annual Conference ‘Constructing Coloniality’ (UCL, London, May) is open for bookings with a member discount.

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Conference Talk: Greening the Desert
May
15

Conference Talk: Greening the Desert

CONFERENCE: VISIONS OF WELFARE 2023

TALK: Greening the Desert

We invite you to this exciting conference talk, under the title Greening the Desert, as a part of the Visions of Welfare three-day conference discussing the role of women in the creation of the spaces of the post-war Welfare States.

The conference is co-hosted by the Women of the Welfare Landscape Project, the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB), and the Women in Danish Architecture project.

GREENING THE DESERT

Landscape Architect Diana Armstrong Bell gained a unique perspective on her discipline whilst working in the Middle East in the 1980s. Whilst employed at Atkins Sheppard Fidler, she learnt the fundamentals of greening the desert from women like Grace Kirkwood, consultant landscape architect for Kenzo Tange, and applied these ideas at the Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain – even setting up a plant nursery on site.

In this talk, Armstrong Bell will share the stories and inspiration that she drew from her experiences working in the Middle East as she re-trod the footsteps of Gertrude Bell (1869-1926), archaeologist, Arabist and writer. Diana will be joined in conversation by landscape architect, historian and horticulturist Karen Fitzsimon.

Booking information

Three-day conference tickets are available here. Ticketholders to the day conference will be eligible for free entry to the evening lecture, just use the discount code we will send in your confirmation email.

Conference participation and evening talk: £60 Standard - £45 Student - £25 Livestream

There are also tickets only for the ‘Greening the Desert’ talk for those not attending the conference.

£10 Standard

£5 Friend/Student/Young Friend

£5 Livestream

Tickets available here.


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Conference: ‘Visions of Welfare’, Sessions on 2nd, 9th and 15th May
May
15

Conference: ‘Visions of Welfare’, Sessions on 2nd, 9th and 15th May

CONFERENCE: VISIONS OF WELFARE 2023

We are inviting you to Visions of Welfare, a three-day international conference discussing the role of women in the creation of the spaces of the post-war Welfare States, co-hosted by the Women of the Welfare Landscape Project, the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB), and the Women in Danish Architecture project. Speakers for the final day of hybrid presentations will include SAHGB leaders Dr. Elizabeth Darling, Chair, Dr. Luca Csepely-Knorr, Education Officer (co-organiser), and Holly Smith, student winner of the 2022 SAHGB ‘Hawksmoor’ medal.

The conference will comprise a series of fully online afternoon sessions on Tuesday 2nd and 8th May.

It concludes with a hybrid event hosted at the Garden Museum in London on Monday 15th May. 

Presentations will consider the role of women in creating the spaces of the period of post-war Welfare States internationally with the aim of looking beyond individual achievements and professional boundaries. The conference will build on and further complicate recent, more discursive historiographies that better represent the complexity of how, and by whom, a built environment is formed and emphasise the diversity of women’s practices.

Tickets to this day conference at the Garden Museum also include access to two days of online sessions hosted by the SAHGB on Tues 2 and Tues 9 May.

The full Visions of Welfare programme is available here.



GARDEN MUSEUM DAY CONFERENCE PROGRAMME: 15 May 2023

09:30 – 10:00 Arrivals

10:00 – 11:00 Introductory Roundtable Discussion

Luca Csepely-Knorr, Elizabeth Darling, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner

11:15 – 13:00 Session 1

Salvatore Dellaria, Cornell University: “How People Wanted to Live”: The Southgate Estate and its Hidden History of Failure

Holly Smith, University College London: Management and Maternalism: Joan Demers (Estate Manager) and the construction of a respectable community at the Park Hill estate, 1959-1965

Eve Pennington, University of Manchester: Subverting the State? Working-class Women’s Transformation of Planned Spaces in Skelmersdale New Town, c.1970-1989

Noemí Gómez Lobo & Kana Ueda, University of the Basque Country, ETH Zurich: Rebuilding Japan through women’s magazines: Miho Hamaguchi’s postwar housing lessons

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 15:30 Session 2

Helena Mattsson, KTH: Radical Bureaucracy: Women and Full-scale Experiment

Meike Schalk, KTH: Invisible Collectivity – Women in Large Architectural Offices in Sweden

Lisa Kinch, Lancaster University: Beyond the Operator: The Women Connecting the Welfare State

15:45 – 17:00 Session 3

Joy Burgess, University of Liverpool: Landscape Design as a ‘Self-Sown Seedling’

Sally Watson, University of Newcastle: ‘All Children need the opportunity to play’…. Women’s Play Advocacy in the making of homes for today and tomorrow

Alejandra Navarrete Llopis, KTH: Post Welfare Environments: Three women defining the Swedish environmental agenda from the 1980s

6pm – Talk Diana Armstrong Bell: Greening the Desert

Please note, tickets for the evening lecture Greening the Desert are booked separately from the day conference, here. Day conference ticketholders get free entry by using the discount code we’ll send in your confirmation email.

Booking information (Conference participation with code for booking ‘Greening the Desert’)

£60 Standard

£45 Student

£25 Livestream

All tickets include access to the online sessions on 2nd and 9th May. Access links will be emailed to ticketholders.

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The Annual SAHGB Conference. Constructing Coloniality: British Imperialism and the Built Environment
May
12
to 14 May

The Annual SAHGB Conference. Constructing Coloniality: British Imperialism and the Built Environment

CONSTRUCTING COLONIALITY: BRITISH IMPERIALISM AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT (REGISTRATIONS CLOSED)

Registrations are now closed for this three-day conference, hosted by The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) in collaboration with UCL and the London School of Architecture. Discounted places are available for SAHGB members, students, and staff members of UCL and the LSA.

We look forward to meeting delegates and speakers who have registered for this event. Please look out for welcome emails from your conference organisers.

The conference takes as its theme the coloniality of architecture and heritage in relation to the British Empire, from the early years of expansionism and the escalation of the slave trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through the physical and political force wielded in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the development of racial capitalism, to the subsequent and ongoing struggles for independence, freedom and justice. 

Note - May 2023 - Public Transport in London: As train strike dates have now been announced, which may affect travel to some extent, we recommend checking up-to-date timetables from your own operator before you travel, exploring alternative methods if possible, and checking national information


The Destruction of the Roehampton Estate in the Parish of St. James's in January 1832, 1833 (hand coloured litho) 

Creator: Adolphe Duperly (1801-65)  | Credit: Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images 


Full programme:

Note - May 2023 - Public Transport in London: As train strike dates have now been announced close to the conference dates, which may affect travel to some extent, we recommend checking up-to-date travel timetables from your own operator before you travel, and national information

PRE-CONFERENCE KEYNOTE LECTURE: Thursday, 11th May 2023

18.00–19.00           Drinks reception in the foyer of the Bartlett School of Architecture

19.00-20.30           Nnamdi ELLEH:

Decolonizing Decolonisation: Ideological Continuity and Discontinuity in Colonial and Postcolonial Imaginations of Modernity


DAY 1:   Friday, 12th May 2023

9.30 – 10.00                 Greeting by Prof Elizabeth McKellar, President of SAHGB

Followed by Opening Remarks by Dr Eva Branscome

10.00 - 12.30   Session 1: The ARCHITECTURAL GRASP

Chair: Elizabeth McKELLAR

10.00    Chair's Introduction

10.10     Ireland as an experimental ground for British architecture

Murray FRASER

10.30    “Yon Empress of the North”: Edinburgh’s New Town as a city of Empire

Amy ORNER

10.50     Colonial inspirations, regional development: The case of Baroda state, British India

               Karan RANE

11.10       Professional entanglements: British colonial networks of architecture

Soon-Tzu SPEECHLEY + Julie WILLIS

11.30      Fictional Functional Reports: Inhabiting the gaps of environmental reports at KNUST’s Faculty of

Architecture, 1963-2023

Albert BRENCHAT-AGUILAR + Ato JACKSON

11.50      Questions & Discussion

12.30 - 14.00   Lunch Break

14.00 - 16.00   Session 2: MILITARIZED SPACES OF EMPIRE

Chair:   : Megha CHAND INGLIS

14.00    Chair's Introduction

14.10      Tai Ping Shan’s spatial injustice: Colonial Hong Kong during the 1894 bubonic plague

Jasmine CHAN + Patrick CHIU + Patrick HWAN

14.30     The police building as image: Station architecture in British Colonial India

Mira Rai WAITS

14.50     Colonial legacy and state building in Palestine: Architectural investigation

Anwar JABER

15.10      Legacies of violence and trauma: Covert surveillance during Belfast’s “Troubles” and Kenya’s

“Mau Mau Uprising”

Karin ELLIOTT

15.30     Questions & Discussion

16.00 - 16.30   Tea Break

16.30 - 18.30   Session 3: NETWORKS OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Chair:   Nnamdi ELLEH

16.30    Chair's Introduction

16.40     Military ports and trading forts of Konkan: Geospatial analysis of architectural evidence of

European expansionism from the 16th to 18th Centuries

Mrudula MANE + Pushkar SOHONI

17.00     Telegraphy and financial sovereignty at the India Office

Matthew WELLS

17.20     The architecture of industrial crops production and extraction: Lever Brothers’ intercolonial and

trans-imperial networks of industrialisation in Africa

               Michele TENZON

17.40     “Save our statues”: The attempt to relocate a Cambridge chapel memorial to an investor in the slave trade slave trade and what happened next

               Veronique MOTTIER

18.00    Questions & Discussion

18.30   Finish


DAY 2:   Saturday, 13th May 2023

10.00 - 12.30   Session 4: OBJECTIVES OF EMPIRE

Chair:   Neal SHASORE

10.00    Chair's Introduction

10.10     A crimson thread? The cumulative effects of race, nation and empire in British architectural

discourse, c.1850-1920

               Alex BREMNER

10.30    Buildings and blueprints: Knowledge, power and colonization

               Vimalin RUJIVACHARAKUL

10.50     A King, a Queen, and a statue in-between: Stabilizing colonial instability in Bangalore

               Sonali DHANPAL

11.10       Fields architecture: The central farm and the production of colonial knowledge in Canada, 1889–

1939

                Émélie DESROCHERS-TURGEON

11.30      From the National Gallery to the world: Museum climate as British Standard

               Nushelle DE SILVA

11.50      Questions & Discussion

12.30 - 13.30   Lunch Break

13.30 - 16.00   Session 5: INFRASTRUCTURES OF LIFE AND LAND

Chair:   Vimalin RUJIVACHARAKUL

13.30    Chair's Introduction

13.40    A bittersweet heritage: Slavery, architecture and the British landscape

               Victoria PERRY

14.00     Schooling the Mufassal: Educational space in small-town Bengal, Colonial India

               Tania SENGUPTA

14.20     Developing capable women: Coloniality, landscape and post-war reconstruction in Britain and

abroad

               Camilla ALLEN + Luca CSEPELY-KNORR

14.40     Ecologies of vulnerability: Post-cyclone reconstruction in Mauritius, 1945

               Alistair CARTWRIGHT

15.00     The “Bod Ose” & Krio architecture story telling the history of a tribe

               Bijou HARDING

15.20     Questions & Discussion

16.00 - 16.30   Tea Break

16.30 - 19.00   Session 6: POSTCOLONIALISM AND ITS HERITAGE

Chair:   Eva BRANSCOME

16.30    Chair's Introduction

16.50     “Not in the usual sense”: Anthony D King and the origins of critical colonial architectural history

               Mark CRINSON

17.10      The traces of imperialism in Nigerian architecture

               Ola UDUKU

17.30     Building a “Little England”: Architectural legacies and postcolonial conversions in a case

study from Barbados

               Anna BISHOP + Niall FINNERAN

17.50     The Georgian isles: Angus Acworth’s heritage legislation in Jamaica and England

               Sean KETTERINGHAM

18.10      Coloniality and the Politicisation of Literary Heritage Conservation

Alan CHANDLER + Caroline WATKINSON

18.30    Questions & Discussion

19.00 – 19.10    Break

19.10 – 19.30      Conference summation by Dr Neal Shasore

19.30   Finish


DAY 3:   Sunday, 14th May 2023

10.00 - 12.00   STUDY TOURS

Tour 1: Heart of Empire?

This walking tour is about rediscovering the traces of the British colonial slave trade in the City of London – as the financial centre of Empire - as they are inscribed into the urban fabric. The money harvested through this form of exploitation starting in the C16 was a key component of the capitalist structures that became enacted by these buildings. Within the City of London this very particular urban environment arguably perpetuates the resulting systemic inequalities even today. As the City continues to rebuild itself this capital is reinvested, and the traces become ever more obscure. Some have disappeared altogether, but if we learn how to re-read them again through buildings, their sculptural ornamentation, the names of pubs as well as those of streets, the transatlantic trade with human beings becomes again apparent and is everywhere.

Dr Eva Branscome is an Associate Professor at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture. Originally trained as an interior architect, her research work follows two strands: the links between built heritage and cultural practices in contemporary cities, and the modern architectural history of Central Europe. She is the author of Hans Hollein and Postmodernism (2018), the first major monograph on that Austrian architect-artist.

Tour 2: Ebb and flow of Empire: Tracing coloniality along the Thames

Starting at Somerset House on the Strand and ending in the rebranded ‘Royal Greenwich’, this tour will use our route down the river by boat as a way to trace and interrogate the impact of imperial expansion, exploitation and extraction on London from the seventeenth century onwards, in the form of landmark buildings and monuments, in the city’s urban development, and in the nature of the Thames itself. We will consider the ways in which architectural projects of different kinds – and their representation – manifested and communicated the empire to Londoners and visitors to the capital, as well as contemporary approaches to dealing with their difficult legacies. NB This tour will last 3-4 hours, but with opportunities to disembark and continue alone! The boat fare is funded by the Survey of London, but you will need to make your own way back from Greenwich (very easy on the DLR or mainline railway).

Dr Emily Mann is Associate Professor of architectural history, race and spatial justice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she is a member of the Survey of London team. She previously taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she introduced the MA in ‘Architectures of Empire: Contested Spaces and their Legacies’.

Tour 3: End of Empire: The Americanising of Mayfair, c. 1900–1970

The decline of the British Empire from the late-19th century was accelerated by – and at least partially caused by – the rapid emergence of the United States of America as the wealthiest and most powerful capitalist nation. By around 1900, surplus capital in the USA was already finding its home in the hitherto predominant nation of Britain, a country with whom of course the US shared strong ethnic, economic, social and cultural links. This walking tour retraces the impact of US capital and culture on London’s wealthiest district during the twentieth century, with Mayfair being steadily transformed into a de facto ‘American Quarter’. Highlights range from Selfridges department store through to the Hilton Hotel, taking in along the way Eero Saarinen’s former US Embassy and other significant examples.

Prof Murray Fraser is Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at the Bartlett and a former SAHGB Chair. His book Architecture and the 'Special Relationship' (2007) won the RIBA Research Award and Zevi Book Prize. He edited the 21st Edition of Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture (2020), awarded the Colvin Prize.

Tour 4: The Sanatan Hindu Mandir, Alperton (2010): Belonging, temple building and the transnational process

Our visit will focus on the transnational alliance between East African Indian communities forced to migrate to the UK in the 1970s, families of hereditary temple builders operating out of India, and British architects and engineers performing the role of ‘translators’, in the realisation of the Sanatan Hindu Mandir in Alperton. Inaugurated in 2010, the process of design, off-site production, and assembly of this hand-carved load bearing stone temple reveals a creative pulling together of ritualised building knowledges, colonial archaeology, modern technologies, and new ‘diasporic’ spatial imaginaries. While these conjunctures disrupt colonial epistemologies in profound ways, they also prompt broader questions about a crisis in production and the very imagination of the Indian temple in modern architectural history.

Dr Megha Chand Inglis is Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Her research is focussed on Indian hereditary temple builders and their lived experience of design, production, and architectural history in colonial, postcolonial and diasporic contexts. Megha recently co-curated a special issue of the journal ARQ - on the Indian temple and modernity - and is currently working on a book on the Sompura temple builders of western India.

The conference organisers are Dr Eva Branscome (Bartlett School of Architecture) and Dr Neal Shasore (London School of Architecture), with advice from an International Academic Committee.

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SAHGB Symposium for PhD Scholars and Early Career Researchers
Mar
31

SAHGB Symposium for PhD Scholars and Early Career Researchers

SAHGB’s Annual Architectural History Symposium for PhD Scholars and Early Career Researchers

Using What We Have: Architectural Histories of Fragments, Ruins, Rationed Resources and Obsolete Spaces


SAHGB are pleased to invite you to a hybrid symposium this year.

Attendance can be either on-line (£6) or in person (£12) at the University of Liverpool, School of the Arts. With support from the Liverpool School of Architecture, the symposium will be held on 31st March 2022 from 9:30 – 5:00 pm (GMT) in the recently restored Arts Library

All places, All periods, All welcome.

For complete details and to register please click here to register

 

Each year, the SAHGB scholars hold an event to provide a forum for emerging architectural history scholars. Open to everyone, the annual event connects researchers across sectors and around the world.

The call for papers received an excellent and global response, with researchers investigating architectural histories from the twenty-first century to early interventions at the Parthenon. The symposium seeks to raise awareness of traditions of vernacular adaptation and reuse, including cultural responses to ruins, layering of settlements, repurposed architectural fragments, temporary habitations and obsolete building typologies.

Organised into two sessions, the morning session addresses historic traditions and the afternoon examines current theoretical and practical approaches informed by architectural history research. There will be a concluding round table session to draw these themes together where examples from the past can be considered in context with current design solutions. 

We are delighted to welcome Professor Ola Uduku, Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, who will introduce the symposium and our keynote speaker, Dr. Konstantina Georgiadou, who will deliver her presentation ‘Only Temporary! Housing the Lausanne Treaty refugees in Greece.’


Programme of the day

9:45 - 9:50

Welcome, session format, and schedule

9:50 - 10

Prof. Nwola Uduku

Opening remarks

10 - 10:30

Dr Konstantina Georgiadou

Only Temporary! Housing the Lausanne Treaty refugees in Greece.

10:30 - 11

Dr Matthew Steele

My Place or Yours? The Adaptation of St Matthew, Brixton, London (1976 - 1983)

11 - 11:30

Danielle Hewitt

14 Million Tonnes of Debris:
Demolition, Salvage and Re-use in London’s World War II Bombsites, 1940-1945

11:30 - 12

Maria Brewster

Speaking Columns: A Critique on the Parthenon’s (De)(Re)Construction

12 - 12:30

Murray Tremellen

“Open and Manly” or “Discordant Mixture”? Conservation and stylistic propriety at the Palace of Westminster, 1794-1836

12:30 - 1

Sasson Rafailov

Permanence in Matter and Memory

1:00 - 1:55 LUNCH BREAK
1:55 - 2 Introduce afternoon session

2 - 2:30

Nadin Augustiniok

Meaning of Heritage and Reuse in the 19th and 21st centuries. A case study analysis of the Moritzburg in Halle/Saale, Germany

2:30 - 3

Thomais Kordonouri

Upcycling: a bricolage of memory and new meanings - Three façades

3 - 3:30

Dr Madalena Costa Lima

(Re)Thinking the (re)use of endangered buildings in the age of the Enlightenment and its decay: the Portuguese case

3:30 - 4

Lisa Kinch

All [ex]Change: Reusing the Lee Circle Telephone Exchange

4 - 4:30

Irma Delmonte

Indigenous Architecture of the Ecuadorian Amazon

4:30 - 4:50

Round table discussion

4:50 - 5 Concluding remarks



Info

Date: 31 st March 2022

Time: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm, GMT

Where: On-line via Zoom, or In person at the Arts Library, School of the Arts, University of Liverpool, 19 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7ZG

Cost: Online: £6. Bookings close on 29 th March for online attendance.

In person: £12 (hosted at the recently renovated Arts Library and includes lunch and tea and coffee throughout the day). Bookings close on 26 th March for in person attendance. Please advise if you have dietary requirements (vegan, vegetarian, allergies, intolerances, or other dietary requirements) when completing your booking.

Notes: The Arts Library is on the first floor.

If you need support with access, please advise the event organisers when booking and they will arrange to meet you to provide access to the lifts. University of Liverpool asks all attendees (who are not exempt) to comply with University Covid requirements and to wear masks while indoors. Presenters are exempt during their session.


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Past Events


Annual Lectures

2025

Tanvir Hasan, Tim Foxall, Níall McLaughin, Ingrid Schroder, Amin Taha, A Conversation About the Shape of Buildings to Come

2024

Paul Binski, Architecture and Affect in the Middle Ages

2023

Tim Benton, Badovici’s Eclectic Modern: The Vézelay Houses

2022

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2021

Christine Stevenson, Telling Stories of the Great Fire of London

2020

Lynne Walker, Gender, Mythology and Architectural History: Narrating a Journey