Classicism and minimalism; historical revivalism and postmodern irony.
How and why do architectural styles come into, and fall out of, prominence at specific historical moments? Is style purely superficial or generative of architectural form at a deeper, structural level? The course is delivered collaboration with the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain and inspired by the current online exhibition Freestyle: Architectural Adventures in Mass Media.
The online sessions will address architectural style and its evolution from the Renaissance to Postmodernism in a series of focused presentations and discussions, referencing the RIBA Collections. This course, that will help you to consider these questions, is for adults who have a general interest in architecture and who enjoy discovering new angles on familiar topics, with minimal prior knowledge required.
For more information on the series click here.
Eva Branscome is Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK. Eva has taught architectural history at UCL since 2012. Originally trained as an interior architect, Eva studied for her PhD at the Bartlett. Her research and teaching work engages with the links between built heritage and cultural practices in contemporary Western cities, and in the 19th- and 20th-century architectural history of Central Europe, focussing particularly upon Austria and other regions in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Recent publications include Hans Hollein and Postmodernism (Routledge, 2019). She has co-curated exhibitions at the MAK Gallery in Vienna, ICA in London and Museum Abteiberg in Germany, and has previously taught architectural history at Queen Mary University, Oxford Brookes University and the University of Westminster.
Ayla Lepine is Chaplain of King's College, Cambridge. Her research focuses on the architecture and visual culture of the nineteenth and twentieth-century Gothic Revival. Following her PhD at the Courtauld, she held postdoctoral fellowships at the Courtauld and Yale. She was a Lecturer and Visiting Fellow in Art History at the University of Essex until 2018. Her publications include Modern Architecture and Religious Communities 1850-1970: Building the Kingdom (Routledge 2018), articles in the Sculpture Journal and Architectural History, as well as recent essays in the Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism (OUP 2020) and for the 2020 Bowdoin Museum exhibition of the Wyvern Collection of Gothic art.
Alan Powers specialises in the history of architecture, art and design in Britain in the twentieth century. He has worked to re-examine the canon of this period and to revise assumptions about the boundaries and priorities between Modernism and other forms of practice, with a combination of monographs and survey books, including Britain (Reaktion Books, Modern Architectures in History, 2007) and Bauhaus Goes West (Thames & Hudson, 2019). His most recent book is Abbatt Toys: Modern Toys for Modern Children (Design for Today, 2020). He is History Leader at the London School of Architecture and also teaches at the University of Kent and NYU London.
David McKinstry works as a freelance urban design and conservation professional within local government and is a former Secretary of the Georgian Group. He is completing a DPhil on nineteenth-century metropolitan Italianate architecture at the University of Oxford and teaches the history of architecture and design at Imperial College London. His primary research interests are urban design and civic and commercial architecture, particularly in relation to 19th-century Europe.
Léa–Catherine Szacka is an architect, critic and researcher based in Manchester and Paris. She is Senior Lecturer in Architectural Studies at the University of Manchester and visiting tutor at the Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design. After studying architecture in Montreal and Venice, Szacka obtained a PhD in History and Theory of Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture (2012). She has been a visiting fellow at the centre for Architecture Theory Criticism History in Brisbane (2015), visiting professor at the Harvard GSD Rotterdam studio abroad program (2018) and visiting fellow at Monash University Art Design & Architecture (2019). Léa–Catherine’s work focuses on the history and theory of postmodern architecture, with a particular focus on media and curating. Recent work include Exhibiting the Postmodern: The 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale (Marsilio, 2016) (winner of 2017 SAHGB Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion) and of Biennials/Triennials: Conversations on the Geography of Itinerant Display (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2019).
This is an adult evening class in partnership with the RIBA. Bookings can be made by clicking the link through to the RIBA website. There is a charge.
For the foreseeable future the SAHGB Seminars will be virtual events via Zoom. We will circulate joining instructions via email the morning of the scheduled event. Please complete the form below to register.
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