• When: 6 December 2024, 10:00 — 17:00
• Venue: Online
• Booking Link for Refinement And/Or Reduction Revisited Livestream 

This one-day conference organised by the Architecture, Space and Society Centre aims at an interdisciplinary reassessment of Gothic art and architecture between c. 1250 and 1350 in a broad European perspective. In this period of increased diversity of patrons and new technical facilities, the design options for artists and architects alike extended to a virtuoso refinement across media. At the same time new modes of reduction emerged, probably originating in economic, technical or programmatic tendencies of the time. The study day – an extension of a larger international conference on his subject held at Halle University in June – will examine this paradox and its cultural context on series of outstanding examples across Europe.

Speakers:

• Lindy Grant (University of Reading), The Aesthetics of Ascetism: Louis IX and Court Culture after the Return from the 1248-54 Crusade
• Tim Ayers (University of York), Less is More: The Chapter House of York Minster
• Tom Nickson (The Courtauld), Two for One: Berenguer de Montagut, Manresa, and Catalan Gothic
• Jana Gajdošová (Sam Fogg), Transforming Tradition: The Šivetice Rotunda and its Architectural Innovations 
• Michalis Olympios (University of Cyprus), Architecture and Ritual at the Laon Cathedral Chapels
• Alexandra Gajewski (Burlington Magazine/Institute for Historical Research), Becoming Papal Residence: Churches and Chapels in Avignon, from John XXII to Clement VI
• Zoë Opacic (Birkbeck), Erfordia turrita: ‘Reduktionsgotik’ and Urban Refinement in Fourteenth-century Erfurt