PhD Position in Architectural History.
Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College Dublin.

Applicants are sought for a funded four-year PhD at Trinity College Dublin, commencing in September 2024, on a topic relating to the ERC advanced grant research project STONE-WORK, led by Professor Christine Casey in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. The successful applicant will be based in the School of Histories and Humanities and enrolled in the Structured PhD Programme.

The award comprises the student’s PhD tuition fees and an annual stipend of €25,000.

Project Information:
STONE-WORK challenges the perception of architecture as a primarily conceptual activity by shifting focus from individual to collective achievement. Despite the emphatic materiality of architecture, its history remains dominated by a sequential model which privileges the agency of individuals and ideas. STONE-WORK’s fundamental premise is that architecture results from a cumulative sequence of actions involving an array of actors, great and small. Revealing stone’s hidden trajectory from quarry to wall, floor, column, and chimneypiece will probe the nexus of skills, techniques, and support mechanisms developed by communities in its sourcing, supplying, and fashioning , and the impact of these processes upon building activity. This cross-disciplinary research, combining the history of architecture and craft with geology aims to produce a holistic analysis of architecture and stone production.

The project pursues four main objectives:
- Transform knowledge of interdependence in architectural production.
- Develop a cross-disciplinary interface between geology, craft, and architectural history for the
analysis of building stone.
- Reconstruct the trade and labour networks of Anglo-Irish stone production to determine how
quarrying and stone-working affected the use of stone in eighteenth-century architecture.
- Discover the qualitative standards in materials and techniques which underpinned the handling
of stone in eighteenth-century architectural production.

The PhD dissertation will explore the agency of the consumer and maker in the eighteenth-century stone industry by focusing on the chimney-piece industry in Britain and Ireland. This is an under-studied topic rich in surviving data both material and archival.

Qualifications:
We are seeking applicants with the following qualifications:

Essential:
- A first-class (or equivalent) undergraduate degree or a master’s degree with distinction in the
History of Art or History of Architecture.
- Excellent communicative competence in English.
- Excellent research and organisational skills.
- Knowledge of classical architecture in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland.

Desirable:
- Demonstrable experience of using archives and working knowledge of eighteenth-century
architecture.
- Willingness to contribute to the activities of the STONE-WORK research project.

Application:
Applications for the award must include:
- A personal statement (max. 2 pages), including your motivation for applying for this PhD
student position
- A curriculum vitae with educational history, including two academic references
- Transcripts of degree results

Prospective students should send these documents to Melanie Hayes at pghishumtcd.ie by the deadline on the 17th July 2024. The successful candidate will then make a formal application to TCD via the my.tcd.ie portal and be issued with a formal offer in the same manner as other incoming PhD students.

Applications will not be considered complete without academic references. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by early August. If the successful candidate does not have English as a first language, s/he will also be required to submit evidence of English language competence at this stage.

Trinity College Dublin is committed to policies, procedures and practices which do not discriminate on grounds such as gender, civil status, family status, age, disability, race, religious belief, sexual orientation or membership of the travelling community. On that basis we encourage and welcome talented people from all backgrounds to join our staff and student body. Trinity’s Diversity Statement can be viewed in full at https://www.tcd.ie/diversity-inclusion/diversity-statement.

Contact details:
Dr Melanie Hayes, Trinity College Dublin, Department of the History of Art and Architecture,
College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Email: HAYESM7tcd.ie