An architectural historian in the Department of Art and Architecture at Trinity College Dublin, Professor Casey was awarded €2.5 million in funding to examine, over a five-year period, the use of stone in Anglo-Irish architecture.
Her project, entitled STONE-WORK: Collective achievement in Anglo-Irish architectural production, 1700-1800, moves the focus from the discipline of architectural history away from the individual to explore the collective achievements that have until now been overlooked.
From the hills of Carrara, Derbyshire and Wicklow to the building sites of Dublin and London, STONE-WORK will reassess the classical architecture of Britain and Ireland from the perspective of materials and making.
Prof Eve Patten
Today’s announcement marks the 2nd ERC advanced grant awarded to Trinity College Dublin and the School of Histories and Humanities under the 2022 advanced call. ERC Advanced grants are hugely prestigious and competitive awards which provide funding for ground-breaking and ambitious research. They support outstanding researchers with a recognised track record of research achievements. Applicants must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their research proposal.
Professor Casey has a long record of critically acclaimed and award-winning work on materiality and making in architecture. Her projects and research team have attracted funding from the Arts and Humanities research council (AHRC) in the UK and the Irish Research Council (IRC), including the award of a prestigious IRC Laureate grant in 2019. Professor Casey has also held heritage sector positions both in Ireland and the UK and in 2019 she was admitted as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Congratulating Professor Casey, Dr Linda Doyle, Provost of Trinity said:
“I am delighted to congratulate Christine on this well-deserved award. ERC Advanced Grants are the highest recognition of research excellence in Europe, and it is very fitting that Christine receive this acknowledgement given her outstanding contributions to understanding the history of craft and architecture.
“STONE-WORK is such an exciting and innovative project, challenging what we think we know about architectural process through its focus on the labour and materiality that are normally invisible in historical records. It is especially exciting that this project will shed new light on Trinity’s abundant architectural history through inclusion of our campus among the core study sites for the project.”
Christine Casey, Professor in Architectural History, said:
“The ERC grant allows me to conduct research on materiality and making in architecture of unprecedented scope and scale. Until now, my research has sought to shift focus from designer to maker and to expand understanding of agency in creative activity. This grant allows me to situate these activities within a wider societal framework. By exploring the sourcing, supply, consumption and working of materials I hope to better understand and articulate the systemic nature of architectural production. I look forward to engaging with geologists, historians and conservation professionals to unpick the complex web of interactions that underpins the achievement of eighteenth-century architecture in Britain and Ireland.”
Professor Eve Patten, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub said:
“It is wonderful to see this truly novel project funded. This award is testament to the huge contribution that Professor Casey has made to her discipline and to interdisciplinary approaches to architectural history during her career to date. The fact that the School of Histories and Humanities has attracted two ERC advanced grant awards under the 2022 call is also a huge achievement and speaks to the strength of Trinity’s Arts and Humanities at national and European level. I wish Christine Casey and her team all the best in the project’s execution.”
More about Professor Casey’s project:
Architectural history as a discipline has a long history of focusing in the main on the individual architect, client and consumer. STONE-WORK will focus on the use of stone in Anglo-Irish architectural production, 1700-1800, the most valued building material of the period. The project will reveal stone’s hidden trajectory from quarry to wall, floor, column, and chimneypiece. In looking at stone the project forces us to include the broader community involved in the making of buildings.
STONE-WORK will examine the skills, techniques, and support mechanisms developed by communities in its sourcing, supply, and fashioning and the impact of these processes upon building activity.
The project will build upon previous collaborations between architectural historians and geologists at TCD and will include research on building stone by Professor Patrick Wyse Jackson, Professor in Geology at TCD.
The research will also engage with ongoing conservation work by organisations for architectural heritage in Ireland and Britain including the Office of Public Works (OPW) and the National Trust.
The project has the capacity to shift public perception of architectural production from a primarily conceptual and intellectual activity to one in which materials, methods and communities play a vital role.