Join Professor Christine Casey of Trinity College Dublin as she takes part in the Paul Mellon Centre’s Book Night.

Christine will present her new publication, Architecture and Artifice: The Crafted Surface in Eighteenth-Century Building Practice (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2025), in conversation with fellow authors Richard Ormond, Lynda Nead, Elizabeth Goldring and Sam Smiles.

Built between 1759 and 1762, the Provost’s House at Trinity College Dublin exemplifies the artistry and material sophistication of eighteenth-century Irish domestic architecture, while embodying a tension between public display and private seclusion. This paper, presented at Within|Without: The Archaeology of Partitions in the Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, on 18 October 2025, explores how its crafted façades and richly finished interiors reveal the illusionistic nature of materiality and the performance of architectural display in the period.

This interdisciplinary conference will bring together geologists, architectural historians, and historians to explore the complex processes of stone sourcing and supply that shaped eighteenth-century architectural production. Topics will include quarrying techniques and supply chains, the working lives of quarrying communities, and the role of stone merchants in Britain, Ireland, and international trade. Additionally, we will examine transportation practices, archival challenges, and the broader influence of stone sourcing on urban and regional identity.

Study Days at the Gallerie Nazionale di Arte Antica - Palazzo Barberini and at the Galleria Borghese: Marble as Device - Material to Surface, 10-11 October 2024.

This symposium is organised in honour of Richard Hewlings. The event will host a gathering of scholars whose careers have been inspired by Richard’s work. Through a series of ‘Notes & Queries,’ they will offer new revelations in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British architectural history.

This symposium seeks to deepen the understanding of the 'professional worlds' surrounding architectural ornament by bridging two rich but traditionally separate fields of research: the history of ornament and the study of professions associated with architecture and construction. With a focus on craftspeople and professional practices, contributions will explore the diversity of ornamental roles, the dynamics of production chains, and the movement of individuals, techniques, and materials across regions and periods. Spanning from the 18th century to the 2010s, and drawing from diverse geographical and cultural contexts, this symposium promises to illuminate the evolving intersections of artistry, craftsmanship, and professional identity in architectural ornamentation.