Dr Alex Bremner
BA(Hons), MArch, PhD
Lecturer in the History of Architecture

Architecture: School of Arts, Culture and Environment (ACE)
The University of Edinburgh
Room 4.08
20 Chambers Street
EH1 1JZ Edinburgh, Scotland
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 131 650 2320
Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 8019
email: alex.bremner@ed.ac.uk

Profile

Alex joined Architecture at the University of Edinburgh in 2005. He completed his PhD on the history of Victorian architecture at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar from 2001-04. Alex's research interests include the history of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British architecture, architecture and empire, national identity and its relationship to the wider built environment, and religious architecture (particularly Anglican and non-conformist cultures in Britain and its colonial empire during the nineteenth century).

Alex teaches in all areas of architectural history in years 1 and 2, from Ancient Egypt to the present. He also offers special subjects at Honours level (years 3 and 4) in the history of Victorian architecture and the history of British imperial and colonial architecture.

Alex is currently Membership Secretary of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain

Current Research

Alex is currently working on a study of Anglican church architecture in Britain and its colonial empire during the mid-nineteenth century. This study focuses on the intellectual origins and motives underpinning the transformation in ecclesiastical design during this period, reassessing the ways in which High Victorian theory affected attitudes towards the role of Anglicanism and its ecclesiological manifestations in the non-European world. The study is cross-disciplinary and considers ecclesiastical architecture in the context of contemporary debate on missionary theology, scientific theory, sexuality, race, national identity, and the political economy of art. It will examine buildings and designs both in and intended for Canada, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Caribbean, Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. When completed, the study will be the first comprehensive and systematic study of the topic, forming the basis of a book-length publication entitled Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture in Britain and the British Colonial World 1840-70.

Publications

'The Architecture of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa: Developing a
Vernacular Tradition in the Anglican Mission Field, 1861-1908,' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 68:4 (2009), pp. 514-39.

'The "Great Obelisk" and Other Schemes: the Origins and Limits of Nationalist
Sentiment in the Making of the Albert Memorial 1861-63,' Nineteenth-Century Contexts, vol. 31:3 (2009), pp. 225-49.

'Out of Africa: G. F. Bodley, William White, and the Anglican Mission Church of St. Philip, Grahamstown, 1857-67,' Architectural History, vol. 51 (2008), pp. 185-210.

'Between Civilisation and Barbarity: Conflicting Perceptions of the Non-European World in William Theed's Africa, 1864-69,' Sculpture Journal, vol. 15 (2007), pp. 94-102.

'Nation and Empire in the Government Architecture of Mid-Victorian London: the Foreign and India Office Reconsidered,' Historical Journal, vol. 48:3 (2005), pp. 703-42.

'"Imperial Peace Memorial": the Second Anglo-Boer War and the Origins of Admiralty Arch, 1900-1905,' British Art Journal, vol. 5:3 (2004), pp. 62-6.

'"Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower": Westminster Abbey and the Commemoration of Empire, 1854-1904,' Architectural History, vol. 47 (2004), pp. 251-82.

'"Some Imperial Institute:" Architecture, Symbolism, and the Ideal of Empire in Late Victorian Britain, 1887-93,' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 62:1 (2003), pp. 50-73.

'Spaces of Exclusion: the significance of cultural identity in the formation of European residential districts in British Hong Kong, 1877-1904' [with David P. Y. Lung], Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21:2 (2003), pp. 223-52.

'Re-activating the Docile Body: a critical (re)view of Diller and Scofidio's Slow House', Architectural Theory Review, vol. 5:1 (2000), pp. 104-22.

Various entries in: M. Irving (ed.), 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die: A Remarkable Tour of the World's Most Exceptional Architectural Feats (Cassell, 2007).

Publications - Forthcoming

'Pro Fide et Patria: Anglicanism and Ecclesiastical Architecture in Central and Southern Africa, 1848-1903' in F. Demissie (ed.), Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa: Intertwined and Contested Histories (Pretoria, 2010).

'Narthex Redux: Reinventing Disciplinary Space in the Anglican Mission Field, 1847-1903' in B. Cleys, J. De Maeyer, and B. De Meulder (eds.), Spatializing the Missionary Encounter (Leuven, 2010).

‘Supreme and High Court Architecture: An International Perspective’ in C. Miele (ed.), The UK Supreme Court (London, 2010).

Links

Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain