The Art History and Architecture Collection is a vital resource for academic libraries, offering extensive insights into various themes such as art movements, single-artist studies, decolonising art, gender and masculinity, citizenship, architecture and design. This collection aims to broaden the scope of art history, addressing a diverse range of visual cultural forms from the early modern period to the present.
The collection encompasses theories and histories of materiality, exploring the intricate relationship between making and thinking, fashion and culture, production and consumption, textiles and industry.
| Key series |
| Rethinking Art’s Histories |
| Studies in Design and Material Culture |
| Collection year | Titles |
| 2025 titles | 17 |
| 2023/4 titles | 28 |
| 2013-2022 titles | 74 |
| Total collection | 128 |
| Keywords |
| Singleartist studies |
| Subcultures |
| Design |
| Architecture |
| Citizenship |
| Surrealism |
| Art movements |
| Decolonising art |
| Queer art |
| Gender – masculinity |
| Modernism |
| Postmodernism |
| Thema subject categories |
| Architecture |
| Avant-garde |
| Ceramics, mosaics and glass: artworks |
| Colonialism and imperialism |
| History of art |
| Material culture |
| Performance art |
| Theory of art |
SDG coverage
Art history and architecture collection
Many iconic early modern fashions did not rely on the most sumptuous materials, but instead utilised innovative fabrics and techniques that imitated the sensory effects of luxury materials. While many of these objects are missing or overlooked in collections, this chapter uses hands-on experimental reconstructions, made and tested following early modern sources, to suggest how fakes might have operated aesthetically and culturally, and explores how mimetic materials enabled individuals who were economically or legally unable to wear the finest furs, fabrics, metals and jewels to dress in early modern fashions. Using the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ database of 445 inventories that record the belongings of members of the artisan classes in Siena, Florence and Venice between 1550 and 1650, as well as sources from other European cities, it locates some of these materials among the possessions of artisans. But it also challenges the assumption that imitations were simply inferior copies for the non-elite. Imitations led to new craft specialisations, diversified the market and cleverly skirted legal restrictions, which enabled people across the social spectrum to participate in fashion. The chapter also explores how mimetic fashions might have been thought about by the early modern men and women who wore them. In doing so, it reveals how the often overlooked category of imitations disrupted a culture of clothing that had relied on a hierarchy of materials to display social status, and led to creative ways of making and dressing.
Chapter 2 closely examines the birth and development of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), which grew from a municipal college into a university. The expansion began in the mid-1950s and was well in advance of the New Universities programme, its only precedent being the concurrent expansion of Imperial College London. Its novel status meant that its buildings were at the forefront of the development of types in the post-war expansion of the Higher Education sector – the first lecture-room building, one of the earliest halls of residence and new laboratories used novel construction methods that were themselves used as research projects. There was significant political interplay in the creation of the institution and its novation from local government control to become a chartered university. Manchester’s most prominent architects of the period worked collaboratively in the development of a modern campus carved from early industrial remnants huddled around an urban river course. The architects engaged with the University Grants Committee in the development of the campus and these early examples of post-war higher education buildings were used as yardsticks for those that followed. As UMIST was consolidated the masterplan for the whole University precinct was commissioned and effectively formed the partnership of Wilson Womersley. Their Education Precinct Plan, published in 1967, established the framework for university development for the rest of the century. The chapter captures these local, regional and national networks and shows how they coalesced in the production of a linear cityscape 1½ miles long.
Central Station became a relic of the Victorian city following its closure in 1968. Chapter 4 looks at the ten-year period after 1968 and the large-scale, but unrealised, developments proposed by Building Design Partnership and Cruickshank & Seward. Here was manifest the relations between global capital investment, decolonisation and renewal. In an almost unbelievable tale, the plans for Central Station casts light on the murky property dealings brought about by the restructure of the railways in tandem with shifting international cultures, finance and procurement. The Crown Agents financial scandal had a direct impact on the formal proposals for the city.