BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//5.99912//EN TZID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:460@sainsbury-institute.org DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE:20261113 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE:20261115 DTSTAMP:20260923T092153Z URL:https://www.sainsbury-institute.org/events/untold-tales-women-pioneers -in-british-and-irish-architectural-history/ SUMMARY:Untold Tales: Women Pioneers in British and Irish Architectural His tory DESCRIPTION:Dana Arnold\, Professor of Art and Cultural Heritage at the Sai nsbury Institute\, will present a paper at this symposium. \n\nDana's pap er\, Un-writing and Re-writing London: Women architectural historians of t he mid-twentieth century\, will take place on Saturday 14 November 11.10- 11.30 as part of the Historians panel.\n\nThis third symposium in memory o f Mark Girouard looks at women’s contributions to architectural history in the United Kingdom and Ireland.\n\nOrganised by Dr Kyle Leyden\, Lectur er in Early Modern Architecture and Visual Culture\, the Courtauld\; Dr Ma nolo Guerci\, Reader in Architecture\, University of Kent and Prof. Elizab eth McKellar\, President\, SAHGB. Supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and The Institute of Historic Building Conservation .\nAbout the Event\nThere have been a growing number of studies of female architects over the past twenty years but almost no accounts of female arc hitectural historians. One exception is Dana Arnold’s edited collection Women and Architectural History: The Monstrous Regiment Then and Now (2025 ) which involved women operating from the 1970s onwards. This symposium lo oks back further to earlier generations involved in the writing and promot ion of architectural history in a wide range of spheres from the early twe ntieth century onwards. Papers will cover women working as academics\, cur ators\, journalists\, photographers and in heritage and conservation. They will consider the opportunities and restrictions that women encountered\, the impact they made\, and the ways in which women’s participation in t he subject area shifted over time.\n\nFull programme and further informati on can be found on the Courtauld Institute of Art's website.\nAbout the Ta lk\nUn-writing and Re-writing London: Women architectural historians of th e mid-twentieth century\nSaturday 14 November 11.10-11.30\nProfessor Dana Arnold\n\nThe architectural history of London in the long eighteenth centu ry has been defined by canonical studies privileging the male author geniu s\, which appeared in the 1940s and 1950s. The biographical emphasis of th ese narratives endorses the notion of a city made by men either as archite cts or patrons\, and for men as consumers of a new metropolitan environmen t. Notably\, moreover\, many of these studies were written by men\, includ ing Sir John Summerson and Sir Howard Colvin both of whom enjoys his own p lace in the pantheon of British Architectural History.\n\nRecently I have been thinking about the contribution made by women historians who were als o working in the middle years of the twentieth century to our understandin g of the urban development of eighteenth and early nineteenth century Lond on. The legacy of\, for example\, Hermione Hobhouse\, Ann Saunders\, Aliso n Kelly and the social historian M. Dorothy George reveals alternative nar ratives about London that move us away not only from the canonical histori es of great men patrons and architects but also the unquestioned authority and assumptions of the authorial voice.\n\nMy starting point is that an a wareness of the implications of the master narratives of the discipline is essential and enables us to expand the discourses around London in the lo ng eighteenth century. Taking the feminist recognition of the more collect ive and holistic approach that women can adopt in a range of contexts as m y frame\, I explore how women operated as historians\, archivists and edit ors during this crucial period in the evolution of the architectural histo ry of London. I focus equally on their contribution to the archive as well as the ways in which they brought this material into the public domain. I argue that a more collective and holistic approach to how the intricacies of the evidence intertwine with the processes of research and writing rev eals a range of actors in the production of the architecture and the archi tectural history of London. In this way\, we see how the vital contributio n of these women dissembles established historical orthodoxies to reveal t he city’s architectural\, social and cultural complexity. Moving forward \, we can adopt these narrative strategies in the re-writing of London as a city made for and consumed by a diverse range of publics.\n\nProfessor D ana Arnold FSA is Professor of Art and Cultural Heritage at the Sainsbury Institute\, University of East Anglia. She is an internationally renowned authority in the field of Architectural History and Theory whose work has been published in over 25 languages. Her research focuses on feminist and decolonising alternatives to canonical architectural histories and include s Women and Architectural History: The Monstrous Regiment Then and Now (20 24) awarded a Judges’ Commendation Colvin Prize SAHGB 2025\, Architectur e and Ekphrasis (2020)\, and The Spaces of the Hospital (2014). She is a m ember of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Advisory Board\; Chair o f the Programme Board of Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heri tage Science\; and Deputy Chair\, Research Diversity Advisory Panel and a Member of Main Panel D for the Research Excellence Framework 2029. Her new book The Public Consumption of Architecture will be published by Routledg e. ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.sainsbury-institute.org/wp-content/u ploads/2026/09/Woman-at-Window-0x700-c-default.png CATEGORIES:External event END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20261025T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR