Visualising networks and mobilities in the architecture profession

This project seeks to visualise the movements and migrations of architects within and across the British Empire from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. At the heart of this project are the questions: ‘Where did architects come from and go to?’ and 'Where did they work?'

To date, architectural histories have largely been grounded in a single place, disregarding architects’ movements across jurisdictions. But architects have long been highly mobile professionals. Their careers, then as now, could span the globe. Nor were their journeys simply a trip from centre to periphery. Indeed, a good number of colonial architects had careers which spanned Australasia, East and Southeast Asia, Africa, and the United Kingdom. And in these places, they could work for multiple entities – themselves, other firms, public agencies – making their careers complex journeys.

The project uses disparate, primarily textual, sources – trade directories, newspapers, and other archival material – to trace the movements of hundreds of architects through various architectural firms, and through the colonies and concessions of the British Empire over the course of a century.

By using database and visualisation tools, the project will enable new ways of understanding architectural history, new methods for synthesis and analysis of large and disparate data sets in design histories and new interfaces for the presentation of complex historical datasets that involve different geographical locations and movements, over long time frames in varying professional configurations.