Architecture, Festival and Time

Hosted by CUBE, this event discussed ‘Architecture, Festival and Time in the Medieval European City: The Legacy of Sacred and Secular Processional Order from the Middle Ages

In this presentation, Professor Christian Frost argued that church processions and civic parades of the medieval period revealed a broad spectrum of spatial and temporal experience that linked real places with their paradigmatic partners, as well as with eternity within which everything else is enfolded. This understanding of the iconography of medieval Processions and Festivals is important because it offers a different view from much work to date on these types of event – particularly the Royal progresses of the time – which have tended to concentrate on the political machinations thought to underpin their genesis rather that the idea of kingship and civic order inherited from earlier times. The significance for the argument is that the examples straddle the Reformation in England and, therefore, allow for a discussion as to how some aspects of Catholic – and for the monarchs of the English Reformation ‘papist’ – practices were transferred into modern England.

Speakers

Professor Christian Frost worked for architects in London, Berlin, and Melbourne before becoming a full time academic. He has published widely on architecture and festival and his latest book, Architecture and Cultural Continuity: Festival, Experience and Historicity, argues that architecture is best evaluated through experiences in relation to cultural traditions.

Chair

Dr Adeyemi Akande is a Senior lecturer in the History of Architecture at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University. His research interest revolves around the culture of images and representation in pre-20th African societies. He was 2023 Senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, NGA, Washington DC.