Art History and Visual Culture
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Browsing Art History and Visual Culture by Subject "Architecture"
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Item Open Access Building Context: The Church of San Julian De Los Prados and Medieval Architecture in the Kingdom of Asturias (718-910)(2018-08-27) Lvovski, Ronald Joseph; Thurlby, MalcolmThis dissertation investigates the date, patronage and style of King Alfonso IIs (d. 842) extant church of San Julin de los Prados in Oviedo, Spain. More specifically, I challenge traditional methods of dating the building, which almost exclusively depend on the repetition of unreliable medieval Asturian chronicle sources and antiquarian records. I arrive at the proposed date for the church (812-842) by broadening the conventional scope of analysis to include the combined impact of the Islamic Conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (711), King Alfonso IIs Visigothic bloodline, his stance against the Adoptionist controversy in the late eighth century, and his diplomatic ties with Charlemagne. This assessment builds upon an analysis of the kings political aspirations and his desire to propagate a sovereign, unchallenged rule. I similarly challenge problematic terminology, specifically the Mozarab label, that continues to saturate the discourse and perpetuate separatist views of Spanish history. In addition to the above, I provide a detailed catalogue of medieval Asturian buildings, wherein the architecture and historiography of fourteen related churches in the northwest of Spain are analyzed; each church plays a fundamental role in our understanding of San Julin de los Prados and its complex history. Though my dissertation is primarily a study of architecture, it is heavily informed by post-colonial and religious acculturation methodologies, concepts of artistic and architectural transmission, and medieval iconography.Item Open Access Nation Building: Gothic Revival Houses in Upper Canada and Canada West, c. 1830-1867(2015-08-29) Mace, Jessica Lauren; Thurlby, MalcolmThe Gothic Revival is, without question, the most influential architectural movement to have ever come out of England. Its effects on houses, and colonial houses, in particular, however, have been little studied. Nation building: Gothic Revival houses in Upper Canada and Canada West, c.1830–67 examines the Gothic Revival houses built in the English colony of Upper Canada and Canada West prior to Confederation in 1867 in order to contextualize them and to give this category of housing the academic attention it merits. Using the buildings themselves as well as architectural drawings, plans, and archival photographs, this dissertation reveals and contextualizes the houses of pre–Confederation Canada within the broader scope of Western architectural history. The houses are divided into temporal and theoretical categories, examining the chronological spread of the style as well the means by which it was employed; namely, through architects and publications. Beyond formal analysis of the objects themselves, then, the influence of British and American precedents is examined from the mid–eighteenth century through to the late 1860s, as well as the dissemination of these ideas to the colony through a variety of conduits such as architects, publications and popular aesthetic theories. This study also explores the rise of the architectural practice in the colony and the resulting eventual spread of the architectural vocabulary of the Gothic style into vernacular housing. Likewise examined are the multiple identities and associations produced by the Gothic style as applied to designs for houses, both on paper and as actually built. This study is the first of its kind, providing not only a comprehensive examination of the houses themselves, but the diverse theories, influences and cultural meanings behind them as well. In short, this dissertation establishes the framework for the academic discussion of these houses by rigorously contextualizing them within existing architectural histories. Overall, it exposes these houses as valid cultural objects and as an important part in the formation of Canada’s built heritage.