Thursday 11 February 2010

Re-appraising the Neo-georgian

RE-APPRAISING THE NEO-GEORGIAN, 1880-1980 An International Interdisciplinary Conference Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London.
5-6 May 2011

Organised by the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, English Heritage and the Open University.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Georgian became one of the most readily identified and popular historical styles in Britain and America in the twentieth century. The re-discovery of the Georgian began from around 1890 (although there were individual recreations as early as the 1860s), and sparked significant neo-classical revivals in both countries in the early twentieth century. In the 1930s the Georgian became the most admired historical style due to its strong formal similarities with modernism, particularly in its architectural neo-Palladian manifestations - the white cube approach. In the same period it became the default style for public sector architecture. The destruction wrought by World War Two led to a re-appraisal of the value of the historic environment resulting in the legislation leading to the listing of important buildings. By the 1960s with the tide turning against modernism and in favour of conservation Georgian towns increasingly became the centres for battles between these two approaches. Thus the Georgian town house as well as the Georgian country house became identified as symbols of certain national and historical values. In the postmodern classical revival of the 1980s the Georgian was again widely adopted, particularly by the new 'townscape' movement in the US and by British architects such as Quinlan Terry. Re-interpretations and adaptations of the Georgian have been a constant theme over the past century and constitute a powerful and enduring strand in Anglophile culture across the globe. Beyond the United Kingdom we would like to attract papers with an international scope from previously British colonies such as South Africa, Australasia and the Caribbean as well as from America.


The conference seeks to address the Georgian as a widespread movement across the arts embracing literature, film and art as well as its better known manifestations in architecture, town planning, landscape and design.
Papers might also investigate the role of museums and curators in constructions of the Georgian and equally the role of interior decorators, such as Colefax and Fowler. The historiography and public reception of the Georgian is another area of growing scholarship which we would hope to include. Conceptions of exactly when and what constituted the 'Georgian'
have varied considerably from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Different ideologies have been attached to the neo-Georgian at different times and places, particularly notions of home, nation, gender and class. This can be seen for example in the struggle to assimilate the Georgian legacy within Irish national identity or in the interpretation of the Georgian as a uniquely English form of classicism in the early twentieth century. The aim of this conference, as the first on the subject to be held in Britain, is to investigate how, where, when and why the neo-Georgian has been represented over the course of the last century and to assess its impact as a broader cultural phenomenon.

Please send abstracts for papers by end February 2010 to the conference convenors Julian Holder and Elizabeth McKellar at:
julian.holder@english-heritage.org.uk and e.h.mckellar@open.ac.uk.
Abstracts for papers should be 800-1,000 words in length.
Some financial assistance will be available for speakers without sufficient institutional support. Please indicate if you are likely to need such support.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: end February 2010

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