Architectural History

In the final episode of our miniseries on Architecture & Media we discussed architectural criticism in the age of the internet, the shifting landscape of architectural discourse, and the new ways of thinking about the built environment that it has brought.

Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us⁠.

Kate Wagner is the architecture critic at The Nation and the creator of McMansion Hell. She is currently writing a book about how an ugly world makes ugly buildings. 

Teshome Douglas-Campbell is a London-based visual artist, architectural designer, journalist and alumni of the New Architectural Writers programme. Often working collaboratively with communities his practice explores diasporic experiences and deep time as crucial drivers for making and holding space in the urban environment.

In this episode we talk about architecture on television in Britain in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us.

Contributors:

Gillian Darley is an architectural historian, author and broadcaster, whose books include Excellent Essex and biographies of Sir John Soane, John Evelyn and Octavia Hill. Gillian has written extensively about Ian Nairn, including the 2013 book Ian Nairn: Words in Place with David McKie.

Tom Dyckhoff is a historian, writer, teacher and broadcaster about architecture, geographies, design and cities. Tom has written and presented lots of series and documentaries for television. He teaches the history and theory of cities & architecture at University College London and Central St Martins, University of the Arts, London. Tom’s phd research explores how television constructs a “public sphere” in which ideas about architecture, space and the city are constructed, contested and “made public”.

Clips:

Ian Nairn, Football Towns: Bolton and Preston, BBC, 1975 (1.38 on Preston Bus Garage)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67CS9fQra4

Ian Nairn, Football Towns: Bolton and Preston, BBC, 1975 (8.44 on St Saviours, Bolton)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hLb4bjd6_4

Ian Nairn No Two the Same (Pacemakers), (featuring Churchill Gardens and Lillington Gardens), BBC, 1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZxhOSDvj4E

Ian Nairn, Nairn Across Britain: from London to Lancashire, BBC, 1972 (featuring Northampton market hall)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ8eyMqJkwY

Ian Nairn, The More We Are Together: Eric Lyons the architect of suburbia, BBC, 1969

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01rwl9f/omnibus-the-more-we-are-together

Ian Nairn, Football Towns: Huddersfield and Halifax, BBC, 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQfgA_6HLT0

Stuart Hall on The Late Show, BBC, 1989

https://youtu.be/J2EFuf3yhaE?si=RTmKKXEfdld8n9h6

John Berger, Ways of Seeing: episode one, BBC, 1972

https://youtu.be/0pDE4VX_9Kk?si=clZObw7skqoFTq8-

Patrick Keiller, London, BBC, 1994

https://youtu.be/nkfhFRiRmIw?si=Dfa7rBg8mhTec6k4

In this episode we talk about architectural and aurality, asking what impact radio had on architecture, architects and public audiences.

Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us⁠.

Our Contributors:

Olga Touloumi is Associate Professor of Architectural History at Bard College. Her research concerns questions of globalization and media in twentieth architecture. Her first book Assembly by Design situates mid-20th century architectural constructions of global governance within debates on media democracies and liberal internationalism. Touloumi has co-edited Sound Modernities, a volume on how acoustics and sound technologies transformed modern architectural culture during the twentieth century; and with Theodora Vardouli Computer Architectures: Constructing the Common Ground, a volume about the exchanges between designers and computational technologists in Europe and North America.

Shundana Yusaf is Associate Professor of History and Theory at the School of Architecture, University of Utah. Her scholarship juxtaposes colonial/ postcolonial history with sound studies in architecture. Her first book is Broadcasting Buildings: Architecture on the Wireless, 1927-1945 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014). Her current book is called Resonant Tombs: A Feminist History of Sufi Shrines in Pakistan. As its starting point, it takes sound as an architectural material of construction and women as secondary architects, collectively nestling ephemeral auditory monuments with their bodily resources within material monuments built by heroic men with material resources. 

Details of audio clips:

Movietone News newsreel of First United Nations General Assembly at Westminster Hall 1946 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3em8Yvf13y4

British Pathe newsreel U.N. Hears President - Kennedy Asks Joint US - Soviet Moon Trip, 1963 https://youtu.be/iBcfSqwvVlg?si=iS7nJ0aIRIjbMFzp

Charlie Chaplin - Adenoid Hynkel Speech - The Great Dictator (1940)

https://youtu.be/isLNLpxpndA?si=iWZNmbzMehKQwT9y

The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain brings together all those with an interest in the history of the built environment – academics, architects, heritage experts and the wider public. As the leading body in the field, we believe that appreciation of architectural history plays a vital role in understanding our culture, past and present. With the help of our members, we publish new research, organise a broad range of events, provide educational opportunities and advance the understanding of the built histories of all periods and places, in Britain and beyond.

Membership https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

In this episode we discuss the press, periodicals and magazines in architectural history from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us⁠.

Our contributors are: 

Dr Anne Hultzsch is an architectural historian and leads the ERC-funded group ‘Women Writing Architecture 1700-1900’ (WoWA) at ETH Zurich. With a PhD from the Bartlett, University College London, and a postdoc at AHO Oslo, she works on intersectionality in architectural history between ca. 1650 and 1930, exploring the histories of gender, print, perception, and travel. She is author of Architecture, Travellers and Writers: Constructing Histories of Perception 1640-1950 (2014) and has edited The Printed and the Built: Architecture, Print Culture, and Public Debate in the Nineteenth Century (with Mari Hvattum, 2018) and The Origins of the Architectural Magazine in Nineteenth-Century Europe (The Journal of Architecture, 2020). 

Dr Lieske Huits, is a decorative arts historian and university lecturer at University of Leiden. Lieske’s PhD, titled A New Visual Narrative of Nineteenth-Century Historicism, explored historicism and revival styles in the decorative arts and architecture of the nineteenth century, and the display of historicist objects in international expositions and museums of decorative arts. 

For more information about the SAHGB, their programme of events, publications and grants and to join the society, see their website at https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

In this episode we introduce the theme of our miniseries, architecture and media. We talk about our own research interests and what the study of media, in all its various forms, has to offer architectural history. 

Jessica Kelly’s book about modern architecture and the media is called No More Giants: J.M. Richards, The Architectural Review and modernism and is published by Manchester University Press (2022), find out more about Jessica’s research here: https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/profiles/staff/jessica-kelly/

Matthew Lloyd Roberts is a PhD student working on the cultural reception of architecture in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain, details here: ⁠https://csca.aha.cam.ac.uk/roberts-phd/⁠

Matthew writes about architecture for a variety of publications and produces the podcast About Buildings and Cities.

For more information about the SAHGB, their programme of events, publications and grants and to join the society, see their website at https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

This miniseries of the Architectural History podcast has been produced to mark the SAHGB Conference 2023: 'Constructing Coloniality: British Imperialism and the Built Environment'. 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.
In this episode we spoke to Sonali Dhanpal about her research into a statue of Queen Victoria erected in Bangalore at the turn of the 20th century. The complex history of the statue speaks to the contested and anxious realities of imperial reification, all too often forgotten in contemporary debates about public statues and imperial legacies.
To support the work of the SAHGB, become a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renew⁠
This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts

This miniseries of the Architectural History podcast has been produced to mark the SAHGB Conference 2023: 'Constructing Coloniality: British Imperialism and the Built Environment'. 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.

In this episode we spoke to Mira Waits about her research on police stations in colonial India. Mira considers these buildings in the context of broader visual and material culture of policing and carcareal architecture in colonial histories. 

To support the work of the SAHGB, become a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renew⁠

This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts

This miniseries of the Architectural History podcast has been produced to mark the SAHGB Conference 2023: 'Constructing Coloniality: British Imperialism and the Built Environment'. 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.

In this episode we spoke to Ola Uduku about her work on the relationship between empire and the built environment in West Africa. We discussed how different forms of colonial and imperial government shape architectural production and the complex cultural manifestations of imperial architecture before, during and after formal colonisation.

To support the work of the SAHGB, become a member: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renew

This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts

This miniseries of the Architectural History podcast has been produced to mark the SAHGB Conference 2023: 'Constructing Coloniality: British Imperialism and the Built Environment'. 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.

In this episode we spoke to Mark Crinson about his reading of the architectural historian Anthony King, whose approach to architecture, coloniality and empire were formed through a complex relationship to different disciplinary traditions, and has much to tell us today about how to write architectural histories of empire.

To support the work of the SAHGB, become a member: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renew

This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts.

This miniseries of the Architectural History podcast has been produced to mark the SAHGB Conference 2023: 'Constructing Coloniality: British Imperialism and the Built Environment'. The conference is taking place from the 12th–14th May 2023, and tickets may still be available: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/whatson/annual-conference-constructing-coloniality.

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.

In this episode we spoke to Julie Willis and Soon-Tzu Speechley about their paper 'Professional entanglements: British colonial networks of architecture', which considers the complex connections and hierarchies between architects working in south-east Asia during the colonial period.

This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts.

https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

In this episode we discuss living in cities through examples of the different buildings and spaces built and occupied in London since the second world war. 

Our contributors are:

John Boughton is a social historian whose book Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing, drawn from his long-running blog Municipal Dreams that charts the history of council estates across the country, was published in 2018. His new book A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates will be published by RIBA Publishing in November. 

Alistair Cartwright is an architectural historian and recent postdoctoral fellow at the Paul Mellon centre working on a project titled The Architecture of the Rented World: 1945–65

Angharad Davies is an artist, writer and researcher, and member of critical design practice, public works. Recently she has worked as a researcher for feminist design collective Matrix, and a project manager and builder at Walworth Garden

In this episode we talk about the relationship between architecture and energy and how architectural history can reveal new perspectives on buildings,  energy use and the climate disaster.

Our contributors were:

Barnabas Calder is a historian of architecture specialising in the relationship between architecture and energy throughout human history. He is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of Architecture: from prehistory to climate emergency (2021). Find Barnabas on Twitter and Instagram @BarnabasCalder

Rihab Khalid is an interdisciplinary researcher in sustainable energy consumption. In particular, she is interested in the intersections of gender, energy infrastructure and space use in the Global South. Her work takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding energy demand

Mary Shepperson is an archaeologist specialising in architecture and urbanism of the ancient Near East. She is lecturer in architectural and urban heritage at the University of Liverpool. Mary's research interests encompass the emergence of urbanism in Mesopotamia and climatic adaptation in early cities.

In this episode we discussed the role played by architecture and the built environment in relation to political protest movements. Whether at the Battle of Cable Street, Chartist demonstrations in the 19th century, protests against racist police violence in the 1980s or Extinction Rebellion, protests always take place in specific architectural environments that shape and determine the course of political action, however, we often underestimate the agency of these protest movements in shaping the built environment through their actions.

Contributors: 

Adam Elliott-Cooper is a researcher based at the University of Greenwich, who works on histories of racism and policing in Britain. His first monograph, Black Resistance to British Policing, was published by Manchester University Press in May 2021. He is also co-author of Empire’s Endgame: Racism and the British State (Pluto Press, 2021).

Katrina Navickas is a Reader in History at the University of Hertfordshire, researching and teaching the history of protest and collective action, especially in relation to contested spaces and places in Britain from the 18th century to today. Her book Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789-1848 was published by Manchester University Press in 2015.

Hannah Awcock is a researcher based at the University of Edinburgh who is interested in the social, cultural, and historical geographies of resistance, publishing on subjects from the 1780 Gordon Riots to climate protests at COP26.

Morgan Trowland is a Civil Engineer and member of the protest group Extinction Rebellion.

Your hosts were Matthew Lloyd Roberts and Dr Jessica Kelly, and this project was devised with Neal Shasore. This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts.

In this episode we talk about spaces for leisure and socialising. The pandemic has radically altered our experience of public spaces for socialising. Now we are out of lockdown and spaces for nightlife and indoor socialising are open again, they have taken on new meanings and significance. So we wanted to look at how spaces for leisure and socialising have always been shaped by the cultural values, social norms and fashions of a time.

The contributors to this episode are:

Dr James Nott is Lecturer in the School of History at the University of St Andrews. James is a social and cultural historian, his book Going to the Palais: a social and cultural history of dancing and dance halls in Britain 1918-1960 was published in 2015

Dr Catharine Rossi is Associate Professor in Design History at Kingston University. Catherine’s research interests range from craft to nightclubs and in 2018 she co- curated an exhibition titled Night Fever: Designing Club Culture 1960 to Today which opened at the Vitra Design Museum and toured various museums, most recently the V&A Dundee in May 2021.

Dr Alistair Fair who is Reader in Architectural History at The University of Edinburgh. Alistair is interested in the relationship between architecture and wider social and political history, his book Modern Playhouses: an Architectural History of Britain’s New Theatres, 1945-1985 was published in 2018

This podcast has been produced by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain - SAHGB. Established in 1956, we’re the leading subject association for architectural history in the United Kingdom. Our educational mission is to promote architectural history inclusively to diverse audiences. Our mantra is: ‘All places, all periods, all welcome.’

We promote knowledge, through learning education and research. We disseminate that knowledge through programming, content and publications. And we advocate for the discipline and our members. To find out more about our work and to support our educational mission please visit our website: sahgb.org.uk, or follow us @theSAHGB on Twitter, or on Facebook. We are open to all.

Credits:

This podcast series has been created by Jessica Kelly, Matthew Lloyd Roberts and Neal Shasore. The series is produced by Front Ear, to find out more about them visit frontearpodcasts.com.

In this episode we discussed the connection between Architecture and Faith, by talking to three historians, writers and heritage professionals about new approaches to considering the history of buildings used by communities of faith. Religious architecture has always been central to architectural history, because human societies have always been inspired to build beautiful and high status buildings as part of their religious practices. However in this conversation we addressed new ways of talking about religious architecture: examining what they might have meant to the communities that built them, exploring the avenues for adaptation and retention of religious buildings in a changing society and talking about how marginalised communities have created spaces for religious worship.

Contributors:

William Whyte is Professor of Social and Architectural History at St John's College, Oxford, writing about the architectural and material history of education, faith and society and serves as the Chair of the Oxford Preservation Trust.

Shahed Saleem is a practicing architect and design studio leader at the University of Westminster School of Architecture. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture and wrote an architectural and social history of the British Mosque for Historic England.

Rachel Morley is Director of Friends of Friendless Churches, an independent and non-denominational charity which cares for more than 50 former places of worship around Britain.

Over the past year, the connections between our built environment and our health have been made clearer than ever before. In this episode we will be examining the changing way that societies through history have addressed these problems by building institutions that provide different forms of healthcare. Our contributors discussed what lessons we can learn from the history of architecture and health, considering the connections between the built environment and the treatment of different illnesses, maladies and afflictions.

Ed DeVane, a PhD student in the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick, who researches the planning, design, construction of NHS facilities in postwar Britain, and is also a fellow in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. 

Ann-Marie Akehurst, an independent Architectural Historian and Programmes Officer of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, who works on Early Modern Architectural History, particularly the development of hospitals and the institutions of healthcare. 

Will Palin is the Chief Executive of Barts Heritage, a charity concerned with restoring the historic St Bart’s Hospital, London, previously serving as the Conservation Director at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich and Director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage. 

Sarah Akigbogun is an architect, photographer and film-maker whose historical research has examined The Retreat in York, an institution for the treatment of mental health needs founded in the 18th century, and whose work addresses race, gender and problems of representation in architecture.

Your hosts were Matthew Lloyd Roberts and Dr Jessica Kelly

For more details on the Society of Architectural Historians and their activities check out the website: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts https://www.frontearpodcasts.com/

In this episode we talk about Architecture and Empire. Our contributors discuss how the legacies of imperialism are manifested in the built environment from London to India and Beirut. We talk about the spectacular buildings of the state and the mundane buildings of bureaucracy, as well as temporary displays of imperialism and the educational institutions built by missionaries.

Contributors: Elsie Owusu OBE is a Ghanaian-born British architect, a founding member and the first chair of the Society Black Architects. She co-led the refurbishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009. She has been an elected Member of the RIBA Council since 2014 and was the founding vice-chair of the London School of Architecture.

Shahmima Akhtar is a historian of race, migration and empire. She is lecturer in history at Royal Holloway University of London. She is currently working on the book Exhibiting Irishness: Empire and Identity, 1851-1970 to be published with Manchester University Press in September 2022.

Tania Sengupta is Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Her research explores architectural histories and urbanisms in 'non-western' worlds with a particular focus on the colonial, post-colonial and contemporary architecture of South Asia.

Yasmina El Chami is an architect and a final-year PhD Candidate in Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Her current research examines the intersections of colonial and imperial histories with the production of architecture and the built environment, focusing in particular on missionary educational institutions in Lebanon.

Your hosts were Dr Jessica Kelly and Matthew Lloyd Roberts. For more details on the Society of Architectural Historians and their activities check out the website: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/ 

Produced by Front Ear Podcasts - www.frontearpodcasts.com

In this episode, recorded for Women’s history month, we think about the apparent lack of women in architectural history. We explore the stories of women working in architecture in an attempt to rebalance this absence. Our contributors talk about what it means to present more diverse stories about who creates our built environment.

Contributors:

Sarah Akigbogun is an architect and a filmmaker. Sarah is the founder of Studio Aki, which is an transdisciplinary architecture and research practice committed to creating, socially-engaged projects. Sarah is working on a film about her search for the histories of female architects of colour.

Elizabeth Darling, who is Reader in Architectural History at Oxford Brookes University, has a particular interest in modernism and gender; Elizabeth has written widely about the history of women in architecture:

Darling, E., and L. Walker, AA Women in Architecture, 1917-2017 (AA Publications, 2017)

Darling, E., and N. R. Walker, Suffragette City: Women, Politics and the Built Environment (Taylor & Francis Group, 2019)

Darling, E., and L. Whitworth, Women and the Making of Built Space in England, 1870–1950 (Routledge, 2017)

Erin McKellar is Assistant Curator Exhibitions at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Erin has researched the history of housing exhibitions and modernism and she is interested in how women have used curation as a way of being involved in architectural production.

Your hosts were Dr Jessica Kelly and Matthew Lloyd Roberts

For more details on the Society of Architectural Historians and their activities check out the website: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

Produced by Front Ear Podcasts - www.frontearpodcasts.com