Encounters of British Architects in Byzantium

At the turn of the 19th century, the British School at Athens brought Byzantium to Britain. As the vital link between Classical and Modern Greece, Byzantium captured the imagination of British architects influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement. Their studies of Gothic and Byzantine architecture in Italy, Greece and Asia Minor, played a major role in the Gothic and Neo-Byzantine revival buildings built in Britain from the 1880’s on - a prime example being Westminster Cathedral.

The Byzantine Research Fund Archive:
Encounters of British Architects in Byzantium
Lecture by British School Archivist, Amalia Kakissis
Preview of Exhibition:
Encounters of Arts & Crafts Architects in Byzantium
British School at Athens
52 Souedias Street, 106 76 Athens
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
7.00 p.m. - Registration
7.30 – 8.00 p.m. - Lecture
8.00 – 9.00 p.m. - Wine & Cheese Reception
In 1888, two students of the Royal Academy of Arts - Robert Weir Schultz and Sidney H. Barnsley - arrived
in Greece to begin their studies of Byzantine architecture. They, and the many architects who followed
them, used the newly-founded British School as their home base. They travelled from the School to
undertake the study and measurement of Byzantine monuments throughout Greece and neighbouring
countries. Each monument was carefully recorded through a series of drawings, plans and
photographs. Some monuments were captured at critical moments in their history, as the expansion of
the Greek state brought churches back into Christian use after centuries. Others were later to be lost to
us through catastrophes such as the Great Fire in Thessaloniki. The collected result of these labours is
today known as the Byzantine Research Fund Archive, a unique collection of over 1,500 drawings and
1,000 photographs, created between 1888 and 1949.
Along with the lecture and power-point presentation of this archive by the British School Archivist,
Amalia Kakissis, there will be a preview of the exhibition, The Byzantine Research Fund Archive:
Encounters of Arts and Crafts Architects in Byzantium , which has been shown at the Hellenic Centre in
London, Edinburgh and Thessaloniki, and will in the near future be shown in Athens. The exhibition
contains reproductions of architectural drawings and photographs from the Byzantine Research Fund
Archive.

19.11.2008