Professor Anthony Geraghty

Research

Overview

I first studied the history of architecture at the University of Birmingham (1990-93) and the Courtauld Institute of Art (1993-94). I then wrote a PhD at Cambridge on the rebuilding of the City Churches after the Great Fire of London.  In 2007 I published the Architectural Drawings of Sir Christopher Wren at All Souls College, Oxford (Lund Humphries, 2007), which describes one of the key sources of British architectural history. The book shows how Wren went about designing one the largest cathedral in Europe, over fifty parish churches, numerous royal buildings, and much else besides. It also gives the first detailed account of Wren’ s office practice.

My recent work explores how architecture was conceived and understood in Renaissance and Baroque England (its intellectual history) with a view to better understanding how it was deployed and received (its cultural history). These interests informed my second book,  The Sheldonian Theatre: Architecture and Learning in Seventeenth-Century Oxford (Yale University Press, 2013), which won the Alice Davies Hitchcock Medallion (2014), awarded annually by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain for the best book on architectural history. The research for this book was funded by the British Academy.

I have also published on the historiography of British architectural history (including studies of John Summerson and Howard Colvin), and on the French architect and collector Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-93).

Projects

I am currently writing two short books: one on the exiled Empress Eugénie and the juxtaposition of history and historicism at the end of the nineteenth century, due for publication in 2020; and one on the English Baroque and ideas of architectural form, which I hope to publish by 2025 at the latest.

Research group(s)

• Architectural History and Theory
  
• British Art
• Renaissance and Baroque Cluster

Grants

Large grants & research awards include:

• 2015: The Rothschild Foundation
• 2008: British Academy Research Development Award towards my book, The Sheldonian Theatre: Architecture and Society in Early Modern Oxford.
• 2005: English Heritage, towards two PhD studentships.
• 2000-2004: Various research grants from English Heritage, Paul Mellon Centre, AHRC, and the British Academy towards The Architectural Drawings of Sir Christopher Wren.

Supervision

In Progress

• Elizabeth Deans, 'Artefacts of Architectural Education and Experience: The Role of 18th-century British Design Albums'
• Dawn Faizey Webster, 'To what extent did the architecture of the early modern grammar school affect, impede or complexify its formal educational and broader social learning functions?'
• Katharine (Kate) Bould, 'The architectural and social history of Heslington Hall'
• Mark Kirby, 'Furnishing Sir Christopher Wren's Churches: Anglican Identity in Late Seventeenth Century London'
• Alexander Echlin, The Architecture of Lord Burlington reconsidered (October 2018-)
• Charlotte Davis, Rediscovering the British Sculptor, c.1660-1715 (October 2018-; funded by the AHRC)

Awarded

• Evan McWilliams, 'The English Use: Liturgy and the Arts in the Church of England 1895-1965'
• Ann-Marie Akehurst, 'Architecture and Philanthropy: Building Hospitals in Eighteenth-Century York (Jointly supervised with Professor Mark Hallett).
• James Jago, 'Court, Capital, Province: The Reassessment and Exemplars of Private Religious Space in Early Modern England, 1600-1660' (AHRC funded).
• James Legard, 'Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace, and the Meanings of Baroque Architecture'
• Joanne O'Hara, 'Colen Campbell and the Preparatory drawings for Vitruvius Britannicus' (funded by English Heritage and the Society of Architectural Historians (GB)).
• Marie Prior, 'Style, Perception and Identity: The Gothic Bridge in London and York, 1740 - 1881' (AHRC funded)
• Frances Sands, 'Nostell Priory: History of a House, 1730-85' (funded by the Society of Architectural Historians (GB)).
• Matthew Walker, 'Architectus Ingenio: Robert Hooke, the Early Royal Society and the Practices of Architecture ' (funded by English Heritage and the Society of Architectural Historians (GB)).

Publications

Selected publications

• ‘Wren and the English Baroque’, in Tabitha Barber, ed., British Baroque: Power and Illusion (London: Tate Publication, 2020 [exhibition catalogue]), pp. 77-87.
• ‘Rebuilding the City Churches after the Great Fire of London: The Case of All Hallows the Great, Thames Street’, co-authored with Mark Kirby, in Paul Barnwell, ed., Places of Worship in Britain and Ireland, 1550-1689 (Stanford: Shaun Tyas, 2020). pp. 95-12.
• ‘Kerry Downes (1930-2019)', The Burlington Magazine, 161 (December 2019), pp. 1075-76.
• ‘Castle Howard and the Interpretation of English Baroque Architecture’, in Mark Hallett, Nigel Llewellyn, and Martin Myrone, eds, Court Country City: British Art and Architecture, 1660-1735 (Studies in British Art, 24), The Yale Center for British Art/The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, pp. 127-49.

The Sheldonian Theatre: Architecture and Learning in Seventeenth-Century Oxford (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013)

• 'After Colvin's Canterbury Quadrangle' in Airs and Whyte, eds., Architectural History after Colvin (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2013), pp. 42-57.
• 'Nicholas Hawksmoor's Drawing technique of the 1690s and John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding', in Helen Hills, (ed.) Rethinking the Baroque (Aldershot, 2011), pp. 125-41.
• 'The "dissociation of sensibility" and the "tyranny of intellect": T.S. Eliot, John Summerson and Christopher Wren', in Salmon, F. (ed.) The Persistence of the Classical: Essays on Architecture Presented to David Watkin (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2008), pp. 26-39. 
• 'Sir Howard Colvin' (obituary), The Burlington Magazine, 150, September 2008, pp.613-14

The Architectural Drawings of Sir Christopher Wren at All Souls College, Oxford: A Complete Catalogue (London: Lund Humphries, 2007).

• 'Robert Hooke's Collection of Architectural Books and Prints', in Architectural History, 47 (2004), pp. 113-25.
• 'Wren's preliminary design for the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford', in Architectural History, 45 (2002), pp. 275-288. 
• 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough: A Gothic Mausoleum for Napoleon III', Apollo, CXLIII (January 1996), pp. 9-12. Reprinted (in French) in L'Architecture Normande en Europe: Identités et Échanges, ed. by Martin Kew Meade, Marseille 2002. 
• 'Edward Woodroofe: Sir Christopher Wren's first draughtsman', in The Burlington Magazine, CXLIII (August 2001), pp. 474-9. 
• 'Nicholas Hawksmoor and the Wren City Church Steeples', in The Georgian Group Journal, 10 (2000), pp. 1-14. 
• 'Introducing Thomas Laine: Draughtsman to Sir Christopher Wren', in Architectural History, 42 (1999), pp. 240-5.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Architecture and Politics in Stuart England
• Classical Architecture in France, 1600-1750
• Castle Howard: Architecture, Landscape, Gardens
• The English Country House

Postgraduate

• Sir John Vanbrugh and Friends: English Baroque Architecture
• Wren

Other teaching

Departmental and University Administration

External activities

Memberships

• Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, Michaelmas Term (2018)
• Chairman, Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (2015-2018)
• Member of Advisory Council, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2014-18)
• Academic Visitor, Lincoln College, Oxford (2009)

Invited talks and conferences

Media coverage

• The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4: Radio Interview on Sir Christopher Wren and the Rebuilding of the City of London churches after the Great Fire of London (27 June 2015)