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Joshua Mardell

Dr Joshua Mardell

Email [email protected]

Dr Joshua Mardell (he/him) is an architectural historian.

His work is thematically wide-ranging and spans the 19th and 20th centuries. Key areas include: conservation advocacy; architectural politics; antiquarianism; queerness; and post-war reconstruction. Primarily biographical and archive-centred, his work critically (re-)examines hitherto unsung – often colourful and off-beam – protagonists in the history of architecture.

A further aspect of his work is in the service of other people’s texts as co-editor of the Journal of Architecture. Joshua is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

He welcomes interest from potential MRes and PhD students on research aligned with his expertise.

Key details

School, Centre or Area

Gallery

  • Curation of a display at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, on the architectural historian Gavin Stamp

    Curation of a display at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, on the architectural historian Gavin Stamp

  • Launch of Queer Spaces at 66 Portland Place – panel comprising Joshua Mardell, Elizabeth Darling, Kit Heyam, DJ Ritu and (joining virtually) Adam Nathaniel Furman. May 2022.

    Launch of Queer Spaces at 66 Portland Place – panel comprising Joshua Mardell, Elizabeth Darling, Kit Heyam, DJ Ritu and (joining virtually) Adam Nathaniel Furman. May 2022.

  • The oldest surviving blackball machine at the Society of Antiquaries of London, the subject of research on architecture and exclusion.

    The oldest surviving blackball machine at the Society of Antiquaries of London, the subject of research on architecture and exclusion.

  • Contact sheet of photographs of the rural architect John Voelcker (1927-1972)

    Contact sheet of photographs of the rural architect John Voelcker (1927-1972).

  • ‘Friends of Cast Iron’ pins, part of research on the activist and cast iron prophet Margot Gayle (1908-2008).

    ‘Friends of Cast Iron’ pins, part of research on the activist and cast iron prophet Margot Gayle (1908-2008).

  • Dynastic Agency: the Buckler dynasty of late Georgian and Victorian architect-antiquaries

    Dynastic Agency: the Buckler dynasty of late Georgian and Victorian architect-antiquaries

  • A provocative gazetteer of York, a 20th century city

    A provocative gazetteer of York, a 20th century city

More information

Research Collections Fellowship, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2021.

University of York, Humanities Research Knowledge Exchange fund, for the student-led project 'York C20': http://yorkc20.york.ac.uk

Brian Allen Visiting Fellowship, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2016.

Doctoral Research Fellowship, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, 2013-2017.

Architectural Reference Book of the Year, Booklaunch Architectural Book Awards (2023) for Queer Spaces: an Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places & Stories. 

The Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects Architectural Book of the Year Awards (2023) Winner [City/Country guide] for  Queer Spaces: an Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places & Stories. 

Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain Colvin Prize, nominee, with Adam Nathaniel Furman for Queer Spaces: an Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places & Stories. (Shortlisted)

Brian Cohen Essay Prize from the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society, 2018.

'Finding a Historiography for Gavin Stamp', present, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

MRes 2022-23 group project: 'Betty and Lady Margaret' on the architects Betty Cadbury-Brown and Lady Margaret Casson.

Books

[Forthcoming, 2023] ‘Architectural Dynasties’, Studies in Victorian Architecture and Design, (Liverpool University Press).

(With Adam Nathanial Furman [edited]) Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places and Stories, London: RIBA Publishing.

Articles

Mardell, J. (2022) ‘Blackballing Buckler: the letters of John Buckler (1770–1851), the Carter school and the foundations of the Buckler dynasty of antiquarian artists and architects’, Antiquaries Journal, 102. doi.org/10.1017/S0003581522000038

Mardell, J. (2020) ‘Getting into a Scrape: The Buckler Dynasty, Lincoln Cathedral and Mid-Victorian Architectural Politics’. Architectural History, vol. 63, 191-218. doi:10.1017/arh.2020.5

Mardell, J. (2019) ‘On how we ought to be anarchists’: Pat Crooke, John Turner, and dweller-oriented architecture’, Journal of Architecture, vol. 42(6), 829-852. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2019.1686409

Mardell, J. (2018) 'Fidelis ad Mortem': J. C. Buckler, an Oxford College architect’, Oxoniensia, vol. 83, 73-92. http://oxoniensia.org/oxo_volume.php?vol=83

Mardell, J. (2013) ‘Far From the Madding Crowd: John Voelcker & Ruralism in Architecture’, AA Files, vol. 66, 87-99. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23595443

Selected Journalism

Mardell, J (2023) "Ever so 'umble, yet worth keeping", Country Life (December), 36.

Mardell, J. (2023) “Seductive Selections from the Gavin Stamp Archive”, RIBAJ (Mar. 2023): https://www.ribaj.com/culture/activist-scholar-gavin-stamp-archive-paul-mellon-centre-joshua-mardell

Mardell, J. (2019) ‘Cast Iron Reasons for Conservation’ [remembering Margot Gayle], RIBAJ (Nov. 2019): https://www.ribaj.com/culture/margo-gayle-us-architectural-preservation-campaigner-joshua-mardell

Mardell, J. (2019) ‘Pat Crooke 1927-2018’ (obituary): https://www.ribaj.com/culture/patrick-crooke-1927-2018-obituary-self-help-architecture-andrew-derbyshire-john-turner-bbpr

Mardell, J. (2016) “The Buckler Topographical Collection: a dynastical reading”, British Library Picturing Places project:

https://www.bl.uk/picturing-places/articles/a-dynastical-reading-of-the-buckler-topographical-collection

Book Reviews

Mardell, J. (2023) "Review of Jane Grenville, Pevsner’s Yorkshire, North Riding (Yale University Press, 2023)", Burlington Magazine 165 (November), 1256-1257.

Mardell, J. (2020) "Joshua Mardell on the I’Anson dynasty - The I’Ansons: A Dynasty of London Architects & Surveyors By Peter Jefferson Smith London", arq 24.3, 291-194.

Exhibitions

(2023) An Activist Scholar: The Gavin Stamp Archive, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London: https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/whats-on/forthcoming/gavin-stamp-archive-display

Joshua is active in the LGBTQIA+ network of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, and in the Twentieth Century Society. He is a co-editor of The Journal of Architecture and sits on the publications committee of the Victorian Society.

Joshua is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.