Overview

About Architectural History and Theory

The architectural history and theory research school supports adventurous research in architectural history and theory at York. In a period when architecture is assuming increased importance both in the UK and internationally, the Department of Art History at York has one of the largest, liveliest, and most wide-ranging group of experts in the UK.

As a research group, we regularly hold research events and we warmly welcome applications from postgraduate students for study at MA and PhD level. There is no requirement of residence at York: PhD students who need to be elsewhere for their research can do so without problem.

Our research

Our research embraces many periods and locations, combined with a notable range of theoretical and methodological approaches.

We have particular strengths chronologically in medieval, early modern, and modern; geographically in Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany; and methodologically in approaches including historical materialism, critical theory and feminism. We offer significant expertise in stained glass, architectural drawings, urbanism, and archival work.

We are building on these strengths to confirm York as a leading research centre for architectural history and theory.

Our research students

There is no residency requirement for research students. Ph.D students can therefore undertake research abroad when necessary, and some choose to be supervised long-distance while resident overseas.

We encourage interdisciplinary research topics; we have particularly close contacts with English, History, the Centre for Medieval Studies, the Centre for Early Modern Studies, and the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies.

Staff

Research staff

• Professor Jason Edwards 
  Victorian architecture: neo-gothic, aesthetic, arts and crafts
• Dr Anthony Geraghty
  English architecture 1600-1750, Christopher Wren, architectural drawing
• Dr Jane Hawkes
  Anglo-saxon architecture; medieval revivals in 19th-century England and Ireland
• Professor Helen Hills
  Baroque architecture; complex cities; architecture and masculinities and femininities; architectural theory; architecture and religion
• Dr Amanda Lillie
  Architecture in Italy, 1300-1600
• Professor Richard Marks
  Late medieval architecture
• Professor Christopher Norton
  Medieval architecture in France and England, particularly 12th and 13th centuries
• Dr Michael White
  European modernism

Students

Research students

Current students

• James Jago
  Court, Capital, Province: The Reassessment and Exemplars of Private Religious Space in Early Modern England, 1600-1660
• Philip Thomas
  John Coates Carter (1859-1927): architecture, Anglicanism and a sense of place in South Wales

Recent students

• Ann-Marie Akehurst
  Architecture and Philanthropy: Building Hospitals in Eighteenth-Century York
• Caroline Anderson
  The Material Culture of Domestic Religion in Florence, c.1500-c.1640
• Joanna O’Hara
  18th-century British Architecture with special attention to the architectural drawings of Colen Campbell
• Marie Prior
  Attitudes to the Medieval in Victorian Bridge Design
• Fran Sands
  Nostell Priory: History of a House, 1730-85
• Matthew Walker
  Architecture and Experimental Philosophy in Restoration England: The Case of Robert Hooke

Events

Forthcoming events:

• 16 May 2012
  Seventeenth-Century Gothic: A Symposium of papers exploring the presence of Gothic Architecture in England beyond the Middle Ages
  
• May-June 2011
  A series events associated with the visit of Professor Alexei Lidov to the History of Art Department
• 9th September 2011
  'Architecture in the Archives: from Castles to Cottages, and from Whitehall to Wren' Rose Mitchell, (The National Archives, London).

For up-to-date listings and details of all History of Art Department events visit the News and Events page