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.

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.

Professor Christine Casey will deliver her Inaugural Lecture entitled ‘The wisdom of hands: craft practice in architecture’.