This symposium – organised jointly by The Courtauld, the University of Kent, and the SAHGB – celebrates the extraordinary work and legacy of Mark Girouard (1931-2022), one of Britain’s greatest architectural historians, whose work continues to revolutionise the scope and perceptions of the discipline both within academia and beyond. Mark’s knowledge and expertise were as eclectic as they were ground-breaking, whilst his infectious passion and willingness to share them with, and foster them in others, was truly remarkable. It will provide an opportunity for some of the leading architectural historians of Britain and Ireland to both reflect on how the vast corpus of Mark’s work has influenced their own thinking in the past, and, most importantly, to present new research and novel insights within the various fields impacted by Mark’s writing. The symposium has been planned to take place as part of the foundational year of the SAHGB’s Girouard Fund, established in Mark’s name to support publications, research and programmes in architectural history.
This event is in collaboration with SAHGB. Find our more here.
Organised by Dr Manolo Guerci, Reader in Architecture at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Kent; Dr Kyle Leyden, Lecturer in Early Modern Architecture and Prof. Elizabeth McKellar, president of the SAHGB.
Programme
Registration and refreshments
10.00 – 10.30
Introduction Welcome by Manolo Guerci
10.30-10.50: Mark Hallet (Courtauld Institute of Art), Blanche Girouard
Keynote Maurice Howard (University of Sussex) Intro Manolo Guerci
10.50-11.30: Life in the English Country House: old contexts, new directions
Mark Girouard’s most widely acclaimed book transformed the way we looked at the interface of the style of buildings and their everyday use. In this paper I will attempt to place this great achievement in the period of its germination and publication, into the broader context of the writing of social and political history, and trace something of its impact on the design of later books on social-art historical themes and indeed on the huge media interest in these subjects today.
Session 1 Interpreting the Early Modern Period Chair Manolo Guerci
11.30-11.50: Gordon Higgott (Formerly English Heritage)
Inigo Jones and the Vitruvian panelled door
The classical precedents in Vitruvius for panelled and folding doors intrigued Inigo Jones, who had trained as a joiner as well as a painter. He discovered these in his copies of Daniele Barbaro’s 1567 Italian edition of Vitruvius, with plates by Palladio, and his copy of Philander’s 1550 Latin edition, now lost. Aside from identifying the mouldings and panel divisions of temple doors (Book IV, chapter 2), and pursuing them in his copies of Palladio’s I quattro libri dell’architettura (1601) and Scamozzi’s L’Idea della architettura universale (1615), he discovered two-leaf folding windows (fenestrarum valvata), which Vitruvius states were used by the Greeks in dining rooms, opening onto gardens (Book VI, chapter 6). Jones appears to have been responsible for the early use of such French windows in England, at Queen Henrietta Maria’s garden villa, the ‘Queen’s House’, at Greenwich Palace, in 1632–40, and at her rural retreat, Wimbledon Manor, in 1640–41. His favoured type of folding door, with raised and fielded panels, is a known group of six designs, drawn by John Webb in c. 1648, which he approved for the doors of the state rooms in the south range at Wilton House.
11.50-12.10: Emily Cole (Historic England)
The Country House State Apartment
This paper will consider the Elizabethan and Jacobean state apartment – the ‘best’ rooms in the Early Modern country house, as seen at buildings including Hardwick Hall, Hatfield House, Bramshill and Audley End. The paper will cover the decoration and planning of the state rooms, and will discuss their relationship to the planning of the country house as a whole. Above all, however, it will focus on the use of the state apartment – a subject which was of particular interest to Mark Girouard.
12.10-12.30: Margot Finn (University College London)
Title TBC
12.30-12.50: Frances Sands (Sir John Soane’s Museum)
Space Explorers: thoughts on Mark Girouard’s interdisciplinary approach to architectural history
When asked why I pursue architectural history as opposed to the other arts, I typically call attention to architecture as the container for human activity. To study architecture is not merely an enjoyment of changing form, structure and style, but a study of the evolving wants and need of mankind. This interdisciplinary approach of an architectural-cum-social historian was championed – if not innovated – by Mark Girouard within his numerous published works. Girouard’s approach to our discipline has paved the way for many of us to branch out into a more subtle approach to the study of architecture than our forebears, in which architectural, social and anthropological history exist in parallel.
This paper will use a short book review, written by Girouard in 1983/4 for The New York Review, and revolving around the subject of Sir John Soane, as a case study to illustrate his interdisciplinary approach. Frankly, Girouard’s text is more of a miniature treatise on Soane that it is a book review, and illustrates not only his nuanced methodology, but also the breadth of his knowledge. He writes with absolute clarity and accuracy about Soane – his architecture, his background, even his state of mind – and all this about an architect who fell outside of Girouard’s purported areas of specialism.
12.50-1.15: Discussion/Q&A
Lunch
1.15 – 2.00
Session 2 The Irish Country House Chair Kyle Leyden
2.00-2.20: Patricia McCarthy (Trinity College Dublin)
The Irish Country House as a site of Hospitality and Entertainment
2.20-2.40: John Martin Robinson (College of Arms)
James Wyatt at Curraghmore
2.40-3.00: Edward McParland (Trinity College, Dublin)
Mark Girouard’s idea of Ireland
3.00-3.25 Discussion/Q&A
Tea break
3.25-3.45
Session 3 Reflections on the Victorian and Modern Periods Chair Elizabeth McKellar
3.45-4.05: Andrew Saint (formerly General Editor, The Survey of London)
Mark and the Victorians
This paper deals mostly with the Pubs, the Victorian Country House, and Sweetness and Light, and the little publication on the Natural History Museum.
4.05-4.25: Michael Hall (The Victorian Society)
Sweetness and Light and The Return to Camelot TBC
This paper will discuss Sweetness and Light and The Return to Camelot in terms of the unified view of late-Victorian culture they present, linked in particular by ideas about gender. On re-reading them, they appear as if they form a sort of diptych, although one does not know whether Mark ever conceived of them in that way.
4.25-4.45: Alan Powers (University of Kent, London School of Architecture)
Country Life and post-war modernism
In the early 1930s, Christopher Hussey had written with enthusiasm about modern architecture in Country Life before becoming partially disillusioned with it. Between 1958 and 1963, however, there were many new architect-designed houses appearing. In between his better-known pieces on Tudor and Victorian houses, Mark Girouard wrote regularly about new houses, with other articles on topical themes of urban planning and conservation. This relatively unknown aspect of his work will be examined in terms of Country Life’s editorial approach over time, and Girouard’s own breadth of interests.
4.45-5.05: Discussion/Q&A
Round Table Where next?
5.05-5.35: Jeremy Musson (Historic Houses Foundation), Manolo Guerci, Kyle Leyden
Concluding remarks
5.35-5.40: Elizabeth McKellar
Drinks reception
