Prof John Hendrix Professor of Architectural History

Prof John Hendrix Professor of Architectural History

John Shannon Hendrix, The Splendour of English Gothic Architecture, New York: Parkstone, 2014. This book explains and celebrates the richness of English churches and cathedrals, which have a major place in medieval architecture. The English Gothic style developed somewhat later than in France, but rapidly established its own architectural and ornamental codes. The author, John Shannon Hendrix, classifies English Gothic architecture in four principal stages: the Early English Gothic, the Decorated, the Curvilinear, and the Perpendicular Gothic. Several photographs of these architectural testimonies allow us to understand the whole originality of Britain during the Gothic era, in Canterbury, Wells, Lincoln, York, and Salisbury. English Gothic architecture is a poetic one, speaking both to the senses and to the spirit.

Nicholas Temple, John Shannon Hendrix, Christian Frost, ed., Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral: Tracing Relationships between Medieval Concepts of Order and Built Form, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral is an in-depth investigation of Grosseteste s relationship to the medieval cathedral at Lincoln and the surrounding city. This book will contribute to the understanding of Gothic architecture in early thirteenth-century England most specifically, how forms and spaces were conceived in relation to the cultural, religious and political life of the period. The architecture and topography of Lincoln Cathedral are examined in their cultural contexts, in relation to scholastic philosophy, science and cosmology, and medieval ideas about light and geometry, as highlighted in the writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln Cathedral (1235 53). At the same time the architecture of the cathedral is considered in relation to the roles of the clergy and masons; the policies of the bishop; matters of governance, worship and education; ecclesiastical hierarchy, church liturgy, politics and processionals. The book explores Grosseteste s ideas in the broader context of medieval and Renaissance cosmologies, optics/perspective, natural philosophy and experimental science, and considers historical precedents in regard to religious, political and symbolic influences on church building. The contributors to this volume make an important contribution to our current understanding of the relation between architecture, theology, politics and society during the Middle Ages, and how religious spaces were conceived and experienced.

John Shannon Hendrix, The Contradiction Between Form and Function in Architecture, London and New York: Routledge, 2013. Continuing the themes that have been addressed in The Humanities in Architectural Design and The Cultural Role of Architecture, this book illustrates the important role that a contradiction between form and function plays in compositional strategies in architecture. The contradiction between form and function is seen as a device for poetic expression, for the expression of ideas, in architecture. Here the role of the terms form and function are analyzed throughout the history of architecture and architectural theory, from Vitruvius to the present, with particular emphasis on twentieth-century functionalism. Historical examples are given from Ancient, Classical, Islamic, Christian, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist, and Neoclassical architecture, and from movements in the twentieth century to the present. In addition philosophical issues such as lineament, Vorstellung, différance, dream construction, deep structure and surface structure, topology theory, self-generation, and immanence are explored in relation to the compositions and writings of architects throughout history. This book contributes to the project of reestablishing architecture as a humanistic discipline, to re-establish an emphasis on the expression of ideas, and on the ethical role of architecture to engage the intellect of the observer and to represent human identity.

Paul Emmons, John Hendrix, Jane Lomholt, ed., The Cultural Role of Architecture, London and New York: Routledge, 2012. The meaning of culture, as it pertains to both architectural discourse and production, is contested in the contemporary world. Whether considered through the lens of innovation or tradition, culture is the subject of intense debate in which conflicting claims are made about its accumulated meanings over time and its potential for advancing new directions in architectural theory. Exploring the complexities of how we define the word culture in our global society, this book identifies its imprint on architectural ideas as well as architecture s role in cultural edification. Organized topically and historically, it examines the role of the cultural in architectural conception and production by looking at its profound and commonplace engagement as well as tracing the formations of cultural identities. Chapters written by international academics in history, theory and philosophy of architecture, examine how different modes of representation throughout history have drawn profound meanings from cultural practices and beliefs. These are as diverse as the designs they inspire and include religious, mythic, poetic, political, and philosophical references. This book establishes as crucial the role of contemporary architecture in mediating between ideas and values of a mass culture and the horizon of individual and collective experience.

John Shannon Hendrix, Architecture as Cosmology: Lincoln Cathedral and English Gothic Architecture, New York: Peter Lang, 2011. Architecture as Cosmology examines the precedents, interpretations, and influences of the architecture of one of the great buildings in the history of architecture, Lincoln Cathedral. It analyzes the origin and development of its architectural forms, which were to a great extent unprecedented and were very influential in the development of English Gothic architecture and in conceptions of architecture to the present day. Architecture as Cosmology emphasizes the relation of the architectural forms to medieval philosophy, focusing on the writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1235 53). The architecture is seen as a text of the philosophy, cosmology, and theology of medieval English culture. This book should be useful to anyone interested in architecture, architectural history, architectural theory, Gothic architecture, and medieval philosophy.

John Shannon Hendrix and Charles H. Carman, ed., Renaissance Theories of Vision, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010. How are processes of vision, perception, and sensation conceived in the Renaissance? How are those conceptions made manifest in the arts? The essays in this volume address these and similar questions to establish important theoretical and philosophical bases for artistic production in the Renaissance and beyond. The essays also attend to the views of historically significant writers from the ancient classical period to the eighteenth century, including Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, St Augustine, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn al- Haytham (Alhazen), Ibn Sahl, Marsilio Ficino, Nicholas of Cusa, Leon Battista Alberti, Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Gregorio Comanini, John Davies, René Descartes, Samuel van Hoogstraten, and George Berkeley. Contributors carefully scrutinize and illustrate the effect of changing and evolving ideas of intellectual and physical vision on artistic practice in Florence, Rome, Venice, England, Austria, and the Netherlands. The artists whose work and practice are discussed include Fra Angelico, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Filippino Lippi, Giovanni Bellini, Raphael, Parmigianino, Titian, Bronzino, Johannes Gumpp and Rembrandt van Rijn. Taken together, the essays provide the reader with a fresh perspective on the intellectual confluence between art, science, philosophy, and literature across Renaissance Europe.

John Shannon Hendrix, Robert Grosseteste: Philosophy of Intellect and Vision, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2010. Robert Grosseteste: Philosophy of Intellect and Vision focuses on two important areas in the philosophy of Robert Grosseteste at the beginning of the thirteenth century: Philosophy of Intellect and Philosophy of Vision. These two areas of Grosseteste s philosophy have not been thoroughly explored, nor their importance established. Robert Grosseteste was the first chancellor of Oxford University, and Bishop of Lincoln 1235 53. This project aims to contribute to the importance of Robert Grosseteste in the history of philosophy, and to establish groundwork in these two areas of philosophy, to contribute to contemporary philosophy. Emphasis is placed in the project on the relation between Grosseteste s philosophies and previous philosophical influences (classical, Greek commentators on Aristotle, Arabic commentators on Aristotle, Neoplatonic), as well as their relation to subsequent philosophies in the middle ages, and the Renaissance to the twentieth century. The philosophies are also considered in relation to the architecture of Lincoln Cathedral.