UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Michael J. Waters, an assistant professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, will deliver a lecture titled “Architecture after Vignola: Classicism, Conformity, and Copying in the Era of Print,” as part of the Department of Art History’s Dickson Lecture Series on Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 5:30 p.m. in 201 Thomas Building. The Department of Art History is part of the College of Arts and Architecture.
In his lecture, Waters will explore how print came to shape an established transmedial system of architectural design across Europe and beyond, offering a new understanding of classicism in the era of mechanical reproduction. Scholars have challenged the view of the printed and illustrated architectural treatise enabling individuals to design buildings through copying. However, the practice of copying at the heart of this belief has been overlooked. Waters will use the most popular treatise of the early modern period, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola’s book on the five Orders, to address this paradigm through his lecture.
Waters studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Virginia and earned his doctorate at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. Prior to his career at Columbia, Waters was the Scott Opler Research Fellow in Architectural History at Worcester College, University of Oxford. His research centers around questions related to materiality and early Renaissance architecture, the graphic study and reconstruction of antiquity in the 15th and 16th centuries, and architectural print culture in the Early Modern period. In addition to his forthcoming book, "Renaissance Architecture in the Making, "Waters is currently working on a book project focusing on Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola’s architectural treatise, cultures of architectural copying, and classicism in the era of print. Alongside Cammy Brothers, Waters co-curated the exhibit "Variety, Archeology, and Ornament: Renaissance Architectural Prints from Column to Cornice" at the University of Virginia Art Museum in 2011.