Speculation and Diversification in Architecture: Teaching, Research and Practice

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York School of Architecture Lecture

This lecture offers insights into the interdisciplinary learning of architectural and urban history as a pedagogical enquiry that connects architectural students with related fields of knowledge in Art History, Archaeology, and Heritage in the unique context of York. Through their engagement with the city of York, students record, document and analyse the make-up and fabric of British cities, reflecting diverse legacies and dynamic continuities in architecture, culture, art and craft. The joint talk reflects on the City of York as an open laboratory of architectural knowledge, where features of antiquities, medieval, and modern architecture offer interesting narratives for understanding architecture as a lived, transformative practice that continues to evolve and adapt in harmony with its social and cultural surroundings.  

About the speakers

Professor Gamal Abdelmonem is Professor and Chair of Architecture at the York School of Architecture, and the Director of the Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Global Heritage (CAUGH) at the University of York. He is an architectural and urban historian and has written widely on everyday homes, architectural and urban heritage, urban justice & climate change, socio-spatial transformation, and virtual heritage in contemporary cities. As a Routledge featured author, Gamal’s books include Peripheries – Edge Conditions in Architecture (2013), Architecture of Home in Cairo (2016), Architecture, Space and Memory of Resurrection in NI (2019); People, Care and Work in the Home (2020); and Home and Climate Change (2026).

Professor Michael White is a Professor of History of Art and the Head of the Department of History of Art at the University of York and works chiefly on the interwar avant-gardes. He is the author of Generation Dada: The Berlin Avant-Garde and the First World War, co-author of The Story of De Stijl: Mondrian to van Doesburg, and co-editor of Virgin Microbe: Essays on Dada.