Seaton Delaval Hall, Northumberland. Built for Admiral George Delaval in 1720. Darkroom reprint of my photo of 2012. A story of land, inheritance, entrepreneurial opportunity, the roots of local power in global interconnections – and quirky radical taste transformed into an archetype of architectural style. [Link] to a previous post. The Delaval family had owned…
architecture
Infrastructural imaginaries
Chris Ford and I are in a conference in Cambridge UK. The archaeological imagination applied to urban architecture, planning, design. Hosted by the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, this global conference on Situated Imagination and Imaginaries of Urban Futures brings together over 70 scholars, practitioners, and artists from around the world for a day to…
Anatomy Galaxy — epistemic environment
An invited response to a one-day installation event – Anatomy Galaxy, by Connie Svabo.University of Southern Denmark Odense June 24 2026. [Link]Link to Connie Svabo’s dissertation on the project – [Link] Epistemic environments Connie Svabo’s Anatomy Galaxy began with a found situation: a decommissioned anatomy learning environment at the University of Southern Denmark — a wet specimen…
Don Lavigne — archaeological epigram
Epigram — a concept Don Lavigne was on campus last Friday (Nov 21) to give what was a fascinating talk about ancient Greek epigram — short texts inscribed on something, typically a stone, base, offering, tomb, votive dedication, statue. Don didn’t offer a philological account of epigrams simply as texts. Instead he explored a media…
Archaeological Theatre
Visiting the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen [Link]. What an experience of archaeological theatre! [Link] I discovered the work of Danish neo-classical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770 – 1844) at the Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge in 1977, when its collection of plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture was still housed in my college…
Tower and Garden
Lindisfarne. Tudor fort converted into country residence by architect Edwin Lutyens in 1901. His major project after this commission was to design the imperial government center of New Delhi. Garden designed by Gertrude Jeckyll. Replanting by the current charitable land owning agency, the National Trust, from original plans lost and found again in Berkeley University…